FAFCO Tampa installed our system in the summer of 2006, not a builder or reseller, but FAFCO themselves. It worked fine until we had cold weather. The panel burst in several places because the freeze protection had failed. FAFCO Tampa's first response was 'yeah, we've had a lot of that, buy another panel' and there was no absolutely no intention of honoring the '10 worry free warranty'. I had a nightmare dealing with them over the issue. The local manager eventually stepped up and got things moving, but only after I been communicating with head office in CA. Calling the Tampa office generally meant having to leave unreturned voicemails and messages with staff. It was extremely annoying and frustrating. Whereas the CA people was very courteous and prompt. A year later, despite preventative measures of draining the system before we were hit with the cold spell, and leaving it drained for weeks until things warmed up, I discovered it had burst again as soon as I opened the valves. Being extremely conscious of outside temperatures and not trusting the FAFCO system, I now manually empty the system to ensure there is no water in it to freeze. But even that isn't enough for this ghastly FAFCO solar hot water system. FAFCO charged $119 just to come out and look at it this time, they cut out a burst pipe outside of the panel, and welded in a replacement section. So at least the big costly panel wasn't going to be an issue. Final cost $259.95, material charge $5. Some of this massive cost was re-gluing a plastic pipe in our pool solar system that had an extremely small dripping issue. Guess who installed that system? Correct, FAFCO! So what do I find today when I reactivate the hot water panel, which has been drained for the last few weeks? Yup, it has burst again! Not only that, it's the same bit of pipework that was replaced earlier in the year. Many people have asked about our hot water solar system, but not one has turned into a FAFCO customer. Maybe it has something to do with once they hear about the issues you have to deal with should there be a problem? Clearly what they installed has design and possibly installation issues. If a pipe cannot drain and ends up bursting time and time again, there's obviously something wrong with it. When you spend $5000 on something, you don't expect it to fail every time it gets cold and have to deal with costly repairs on a "10 year worry free warranty", particularly so when you go out of your way to prevent them. Whatever you save in electricity costs is clearly outweighed by repairing the darn thing, let alone the grief of having to deal with this company. Before buying a solar hot water system, ignore the spiel about how well they work and what you might save on your power bill, that's a given when they work. Ask about failure rates, how they're handled, hidden fees for repairs etc. And most importantly, have them supply references of customers who have had the system installed for at least 3 winters! I'll post a follow up, if and when the Tampa office return my call about their hot water system failing yet again. Let's hope it's good news! Final note: Tampa FAFCO are part of Duramade Windows in this area now, maybe beyond.

We just purchased a home that has a disconnected solar panel on the roof. The pipes are there, and there are pipes where the hot water heater is inside leading TO the tank but not connected to it. Tomorrow we are having the roof replaced on the house, which means the solar panel will have to be disassembled and taken down. If the roofers are to reconnect the panel it will cost around $500 dollars. We'd love to use this system, which is an integral collector-storage system, but we don't even know if it works! The previous owners said that it did, but they disconnected it, which sounds fishy, don't you think? Is there a way that we can test the solar panel out before reconnecting it? What kind of failures may I find in the system? Many thanks in advance for your help! Jane

Lissa- I just had a Franke Little Butler installed three days ago and I can't tell you how much we love it. The reason I chose it was that I wanted both the hot and cold water to be filtered, and at the time I was looking, Franke was the only company that did this that I found. (I bought the unit last year, yes it has taken THAT LONG to get to where we were ready to install it). The Insta-hot brand filtered the cold but not the hot water. Anyway, the unit is not that big-- the heater is a rectangular cube about 11x7 inches. The filter (it is a Franke triflow filtration unit) is a cylinder about 11 inches high by 2 inches in diameter. However, I don't have a separate cooling unit for the cold water, since the temp coming out of the cold tap is good enuf for me. Also, my fridge has filtered cold water for those times when it matters to me. But the Little Butler filter, heater, and my garburetor fit very comfortably in the sink cab, which is 36" wide. As for cost, when I was looking these units were quite high, but I bought mine from an ebay storefront with 100% positive feedback for about half the price I was quoted in the snazzy plumbing showroom (can't remember numbers now, it's been so long). Hope this info is of use, good luck!

Argh -- I was hoping that a power vent of the exhaust gas would be sufficient to solve the problem, and that I wouldn't necessarily need a direct vent of outside air for combustion. Just having a power vent of the exhaust gas would be easy to retrofit into our system, and as a big added bonus, the power vent systems seem to be incredibly energy efficient. Having a direct vent for the combustion from outside air would be more difficult to retrofit in, and such systems for whatever reason don't seem to have as high energy factors as the power vent-only designs do. I'm thinking that perhaps I may just permanently disable the exhaust fan. The exhaust fan helps in late spring early fall when the outside temp in Phoenix swings from high to low greatly overnight. In the summer time, it doesn't help that much, since the outside temp stays hot all the time. I already have radiant insulation on the inside of the garage door (we're south facing), which has greatly assisted in rejecting heat from being soaked into the garage. Alternatively, I may look into solving the negative pressure situation. Presumably, I could cut more holes into the walls of the garage, and then verify that the exhaust gases are not being sucked out of the flue. I'm thinking I may just be on the threshold of the negative pressure situation, insofar as the problem does not occur all the time. On the flip side, I don't really want to start cutting holes into the walls of the garage willy nilly unless I know it's going to solve the problem.