This is one of the Queen’s personal favorites. In fact, it should be a no brainer for almost every household. While doing research for this, the Queen found herself standing dumbfounded in a Lowe’s home improvement store, staring up at the electric water heaters. Could it really be that one electric water heater used almost 5,000 kilowatt hours per year? Wasn’t that five MEGAwatt hours? Wasn’t that the same as almost 200 therms worth of natural gas? In short, wasn’t that an AWFUL LOT of money just for hot water? Or was her royal mind failing her? Indeed, her royal mind was sharp as ever, and the numbers were correct.

     Using electricity to make heat is one of the least efficient uses of a power dollar imaginable. Electricity 101 says making heat requires lots of current going through a resistant wire. Which means lots of electrons and lots of kilowatt hours. Again, when electricity is only a nickel per KWH, who cares? Alas, electricity is not so cheap anymore. You know what, neither is natural gas or propane! It is so easy to heat water with a little help from Mother Nature. A realization which should bring us to a “come to truth” moment. WHAT ARE WE DOING!?!? Paying for hot water when we can get it for free?

     So, let’s say you were out camping, and you really wanted to bath in some hot water. You could make your own crude water heater. How would you do it? You’d put water in something like a black pot, or a black rubber bag to soak up the sun’s rays during the day. By evening, you’d have some soothing warm water courtesy of our gal Mother Nature.

     The solar water heaters now on the market use the same basic principle of extracting heat from the sun but have been refined to the pinnacle of efficiency. All the components work together to extract every bit of heat from the sun (a hot day is not required, merely sun) and transfer it to water… your water.