In a basic system light rays are collected by the panels and heat transfered through the pipe work into the coil at the bottom of the cylinder.

Heat from this coil is then transfered to all the water in the cylinder which then is used to provide your hot water.

As a back up a boiler is installed which will heat another coil of pipe work in the cylinder to top up your hot water if required.

In the summer months 'Yes' Solar Panels will heat up your hot water and you will save money. In the winter 'Yes' it will heat up your hot water on a lovely sunny frosty day and save you money, but there are times when you will require a back up, so we provide a boiler to top up the thermal store to provide that extra heat required.

This boiler can be run on oil gas, solid fuel or even electricity.

Thesh schematic diagram shows a typical installation combining radiators with under floor heated by a solar system and a high efficiency boiler.

The cylinder is a Gledhill Torrent RE with a thermal store.

In simple terms any hot water produced from the solar panel collectors will heat the water at the bottom of the cylinder. This hot water store will then be used directly for the under floor heating and indirectly for the hot water. The hot water is under cold water mains pressure and will produce hot water to the tap at mains pressure through a coil of pipe in the cylinder which is heated by the transfer of the hot store to the coil. The boiler is used as a back up for the heating and the hot water if the solar is not producing enough heat.

In simple terms it is a storage vessel filled with water which is heated by a source of heat. The thermal store can be used with a solar system therefore using the solar panels to heat this store could provide hot water to your UFH system and hot water to your tap.

Worcester Bosch have produce a flash animation for Windows based PC's.