12 Online Solar Thermal Calculators In One Place

“How much?” That’s perhaps the most frequently asked question in the solar business. Customers are always asking about the cost first and the technology, quality, and durability later. That’s customers.

But when you’re a solar thermal manufacturer and distributor, installers have a lot of questions too. Both solar heating pros and new installers getting into the solar thermal business often call our Free Hot Water engineering department with challenges that require just the right calculations. And while we love to help, it’s difficult to tap on an engineer’s shoulder every 20 minutes and expect him to finish calculations for our own projects on time.

Finally, our COO, Paul Burrowes tapped on the engineering department’s shoulder one last time, and together they created solarcalculator.com (which redirects to our website calculator page.)

Click on the above link, and you’ll find all these solar thermal related calculators. Some we created, and others are links to existing online resources, including:

Commercial Collector Spacing Calculator Spacing Solar Collector Array's: Desired Degrees, Length, Pitched or Flat Roof, Height from roof, Supports, Location Latitude, and Distance to Next Solar Array.           

Glycol Mix Calculator  Based on pipe size, length of run, number of solar collectors, and the fluid capacity of the collector; Calculate the percent of polypropylene glycol mix with distilled water.

Radiant Floor and Heat Loss Calculator Calculate the heated building, basement, and garage envelope walls, doors, windows for the BTU requirements, and the number of solar collectors needed.

Solar Thermal Calculator Commercial & Residential Solar Hot Water Calculator Daily energy required in BTU's, number of solar collectors, system pricing, state rebates, and Federal tax credits.

Swimming Pool Calculator  Complete swimming pool calculator: Collector panels and sizing, pump controllers, collector row, and system connection kits.

Conversion Calculator All your solar thermal related basic conversions in one place: Energy (BTU, kWh, Therms), Fluid (Gallon, Ml, Liters), Length (inch, mm, cm), Mass (lb, kilo, gram), Area (square feet, cm, meter), Temperature (Fahrenheit, Calsius, Kelvin)

Annual Insolation U.S. Annual insolation is calculated by integrating the hourly TMY3 insolation values for the year at each tilt/azimuth combination.

Roof Azimuth Measurement Tool  By clicking and dragging the mouse along the roof edge, draw a line along the edge of the roof in the direction you want to measure.

Compound Angle Tool The Compound Angle Tool is a free downloadable tool to help calculate compound angles for solar energy installations.

Latitude/Logitude Time Zone Calculator (Big File) Calculate the latitude and longitude of any zip code in the United States.

Carbon Dioxide Emissions Calculator  Gain an approximate idea of how many tons of carbon dioxide some of your activities generate and how many trees it would take to offset those emissions. Useful for showing the green benefits in solar thermal proposals.

Friction and Head Loss Calculations (Coming Soon)  Find the pressure loss in pipe runs, valves, fittings, heat exchangers, head loss, and velocity. Estimate gallons per minute (GPM) and fluid in solar pipe run.

Naturally, if you still have questions for any of our departments at Free Hot Water, always feel free to contact us.

Free Hot Water is a manufacturer and distributor of high quality solar hot water systems for commercial and residential applications. Browse our catalog of over 1200 products at www.shop.freehotwater.com.