I'm new to this board but what I have seen impresses me.....thanks.

I have about 600 watts (rated) running through a trace c35 into a 400 AH battery bank. I moved a couple of my house circuits over to a new breaker box and a 4024. everything works great but on low consumption days the batteries get fully charged and the remaining power from the day is wasted. My power company is a co-op and therefore will not be receptive to a grid tie system so my only option will be a diversion load. I have gas hot water heater and want to know if anyone out there has ever installed one of those 500W water heater diversion elements in one? Also does that element come with a thermostat? I wouldn't think that constantly pumping 500 watts into a hot water heater is a safe thing. Thanks in advance.

Hi Solarguy,

I have used an electric water heater as a diversion load. I plumbed it in as a preheater to the gas heater. You could use one of the voltage sensitive relays of the SW to drive a power relay to the heater element. Remember, a 2000W 240V element will be a 500W load at 120V.

You might possably put an electric element into a standard gas heater but you might not have enough fittings. One possability might be to remove the dip tube on the cold water intake and replace it with a heating element if you can find one with the same threads. A strap on thermostat on the hot water outlet pipe as close to the tank as possable might give enough over heating protection. You would then need to put a T on the drain fitting and use it for both the cold water input and the drain. You probably would not have an overheating problem with only a 600W array but you should make provisions for it. Possably a 500W air heater as the second diversion load or just open up the array.