So if it's 7kW per day that's under R20? Hardly worth a timer?
EDIT: sounds pretty low to me......mine 150kl works out at about R50 per day and it's in the ceiling under a hot roof.
Thanks, yeah, cost is not an issue so much for me, but will try and reduce where I can - the current monthly bill is close to R4k, so looking for small ways to reduce. Given all the comments, it certainly seems more on the lower side
Not sure if I will use the timer function of the CBI, but may play around and see what can be achieved.
Sounds about right. What make and rating is the geyser?
You are in the perfect situation to experiment with the timer function.
Monitor the power usage over 7 days at least to get a good idea of when the peak draws are occurring.
Then use the data to determine how long the geyser stays on before reaching the desired temperature
You could consider reducing the amount of hot water drawn by raising the temperature of the water to above 60 degrees and see how that changes the total usage over 24 hours.
The minimum you should run the geyser is in any case 60 degrees to combat bacterial growth in the water.
Actually quite pi$$ed with the insurance installer - after checking today, prompted by your question, (
I personally wasn't at home when they installed) it's only a 150l and not a 200l like the old one. Can't do much now, but will take it up with them...
It's an Ariston Heattech 3kW, 600kpa, 150l, Energy Class B.
One sticker on the unit shows the energy standing loss as 57 watts.
Another shows standing loss per 24hrs as 1.37kWh
The similar Kwikot 3kW unit seems to have slightly less loss figures per their site, but seemingly not much of a difference on first glance.
7kwh per day is likely 2kWh standing loss (200L C-rated?) and 5kwh on water. Assuming tap water is 15 and geyser is 58/60, its 45 degrees raised.
45 degrees means about 20 L per kwh. So you must use around 100L per day... Or 10mins of 10L/min showering.
Cut your showers in half and you should cut the usage down to about 4.5Kwh.
Things to check. Whats the usage when you are away! Thats the standing loss.
Timers save you money by you using colder water - e.g. maid is working all day long, with geyser on she uses 60 degree water, with it off shes using 40 degress by the end of the day.
Timers will hardly save on standing loss. Which for some reason all of the "tests" focus on.
Will be checking the standing loss when we can. Good info, thanks
I forgot to add, as the geyser is outside, the pipes become a prime point to lose heat. Are the pipes lagged especially outside? If possible get the pipes all insulated. The hot water pipes are far as you possibly can go before they disappear into the walls. The cold water run for at least 1 m from the geyser.
You could come up with a temperature versus power usage curve by incrementally increasing the temperature and see if there is a temperature sweet spot.
Do this before you set the timer functions.
Yeah, have all the pipes lagged; going to up the temp to 62/65C on Tuesday (
after a week of monitoring) and see what it does, if anything
In short there is no NORMAL geyser usage because there is no normal hot water usage.
Is it normal to spend 20 minutes washing your hair? Is it normal to only shower for 2 minutes with a low flow shower head. Do you shower every day, twice a day... Or always at the gym! Got young kids, do you bath them every night? How full and how hot is that bath or is it just a bucket/basin?
The above make such a huge difference to your usage that anything else is meaningless...
At Homebug we see hundreds of individual users hot water consumption and I can attest there is no Normal. Cold day -- well people will shower about 20% longer. Families, some use loads some very little...
Its like saying what is your normal bread eating amount... Some people eat four slices for breakfast, some have none...
That being said, if you are monitoring energy usage of your geyser you are miles ahead of many of people in terms of understanding. Well done! Don't worry about normal, just worry about what you could do for your usage - mainly daily washing yourself and dishes - can less hot water be used? (Low flow shower... Etc.).
Finally as someone said, think of legionaries!
Thanks, this is what I thought, so I'll monitor our specific use over the next few weeks and see where the spikes are. With the 2 lots of loadshedding the past 2 days, at 2hrs each, the daily power total dropped by about 1.4kW, so going to play around with the timer function and see if there is a sweet spot for our usage pattern.
Already have the flow restrictors in the taps, showerhead, etc, so the "average" we use daily should not fluctuate too much - showers are fairly short, try to use the hot taps only when really needed, etc.
Going to raise the thermostat to around 62/65C and see what that does - our old geyser was at 70C (I think) and that chomped kW's... but it was also rather old...
Thanks for all the comments and input!
