Heating a garage by solar power?

I live in west wales and run on heating oil. Can you give me all the relevant info on solar for my home hot water systems and also electric systems.
Would the sticky panels work on a conservatory?
Also if I wanted to use a solar panel to give a large double garage heating would this work if the garage was in constant use?
Glynne.

Hi Glynne,

The flexible adhesive-backed panels should work on most surfaces which are big enough and flat enough - note that they are 3 metres long though, and they would probably not go over ridges very well, so it depends on the surface of your conservatory roof. To get the best results from solar panels it is important that they are angled south too, to get the most sunlight.

Note too that panels produce DC electricity, so you have two options - either use them to charge a battery, and run DC lights etc off that, or buy a grid-connect inverter, which allows you to connect the system into the national grid.

Hot water solar panels are generally used just for heating water for domestic use (washing, showers etc.) They aren't really a replacement for space heating, so no, I'm afraid you couldn't use them to heat your garage. The reason is that you get no output from your solar panels in the middle of cold dark winter nights - which is when you need the heating the most! For more information on solar hot water panels I'd recommend you try Navitron (www.navitron.org.uk).