The solar water heater: a good idea, but only half a solution

A solar water heater heats your tap water using solar collectors on the roof. It offers up to 60% savings on hot water and has a lifespan of 20 to 25 years. The system does what it promises, but only in the summer. In winter, you will always need a second system, such as a central heating boiler or electric auxiliary heating. A solar water heater does not heat your home. Finally, the collectors take up space that could otherwise be used for solar panels. Costs range between 2,500 and 7,000 euros, with a payback period of 8 to 20 years. All that for a solution that only does one thing.

The air conditioner: cooling as a selling point, heating as an afterthought

More and more people are choosing air conditioning to heat their homes. It’s understandable: the purchase cost of an installation with a single indoor unit is low, and a modern air conditioner does indeed heat a room efficiently. However, the limitations are significant.

An air conditioner heats room by room, not your entire house via a central system like a boiler. You need a separate unit for every room. It does not provide hot tap water, so you are still stuck with your gas bill.  

Furthermore, it does not qualify for the ISDE subsidy. Here is why: under European regulations, an air-to-air heat pump is officially classified as air conditioning, not as a heating appliance. The ISDE is intended to reduce energy consumption, and cooling does the exact opposite. The result: no subsidy.

What a heat pump does

A Weheat heat pump heats your entire home, provides hot tap water, works year-round, and comes with a full ISDE subsidy. With a hybrid setup, you can save up to 70% on your gas consumption. Going all-electric means getting off gas entirely. The average payback period is 5.6 years.

And what about cooling? Weheat heat pumps have a built-in cooling function. Whether that works well in your home depends on how the heat is distributed. With underfloor heating or special fans, the system cools your home gradually. This is slightly slower than an air conditioner that blows cold air directly into the room, but it does so without drafts and without extra devices on the wall. Do you only have older, high-profile radiators? Then an adjustment is needed before cooling will work. An installer can assess this during a consultation.

Weheat Intelligence: the layer that makes the difference

Weheat Intelligence automatically controls the heat pump based on energy prices, your solar panels, and the weather forecast. The system heats your home and charges your hot water tank at the cheapest time of the day. In practice, we see significant savings. For one of our customers, energy costs dropped by 29%, while self-consumption of solar power increased from 17% to 51%.

A solar water heater doesn't know what electricity costs. Neither does an air conditioner. They each only do one thing.

The conclusion

The choice is actually simple. A solar water heater does one thing well, but that’s where it stops. An air conditioner cools just fine, but you still need gas to heat your tap water. A Weheat heat pump handles the whole package: heating, hot water, cooling where possible, and smart control that automatically takes advantage of the cheapest energy rates.

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A system for heating, hot water, cooling, and smart energy management. ‍

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