Solar powered water heaters

[RichZ]

Does anyone know where to buy solar powered water heaters for stock tanks? Do you know how much they cost? I use 100 gallon stock tanks.

Thanks!

I saw some of these quite awhile back Rich. YOu don't hardly see any now. The reason was the livestock would wreck the cells. You have to keep the cells too far away from the source and they never really worked very well.

[four_by_ken]

Heating water, especailly 100 gallons, requires a LOT of electricity. And the amount of solor cells requted to charge the amount of batteries... is much more than most people would ever want to spend.

Ken H.

[zuiko]

What you see more often for solar heating of water is where electricity isn't involved at all. They have some black panels with pipes on both ends and the water absorbs the heat. Not sure what is going on inside the panels but I imagine it is some sort of radiator. Also not sure how well they really work, since when it's cold there isn't very many hours of sun and the sun is not as intense.

They do make very well insulated tanks with holes covered with insulated floats that are supposed to stay above freezing just from the heat of the animals using them. You need enough animals using it for it to work though.

[herbenus]

Do an internet search for solar water heaters. Most or all will be for houses. But I don't know why you couldn't apply the same to a stock tank. I remember an article a while back on solar water heaters. One very passive method was to build a a box and put an old water heater inside. The box was open on top and completely painted black with a glass or plexiglass top. You positioned it for best exposure. You might need to get a low flow pump (solar?) to flow from tank through heater and back.