GeyserWise product

Hi i find that a correctly programmed geyser wise will save u between R250 & R450 per month per geyser wise!
 
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right so here is an update.......I installed a geyser wise, mainly for the convenience. I was not expecting a significant drop in my eskum bill cause I had a timer on the geyser already and it only came on for 2hrs a day. So I turned down the temp from 70°c (old thermostat) to 55°c to see if it would make a difference on the bill.

yes it did indeed.........it went from last months R410-00 to this months R701-00!!!!!!! :wtf:

Ok so it's an estimate bill........so I'm hoping that next months bill it will drop back to what I actually use. I assume this is eskums averaging billing system at work?

anyone else experience a sudden increase in their bill after using less electricity?
 
Installation charges piss me off..

I am busy making my own little contraption for hot water.. I am not interested in paying anyone more than R800 for hot water when I can do it Myself.

We should start a thread or support website for people trying out their own solar energy devices
 
had a problem with my GF's geyserwise last night. her power want off yesterday and when it came back on the GW was off - no display - no hot water. so they had no hot water yesterday evening. Could not get hold of Leon either.

Now it seems the GW came back on during the night and they had hot water this morning?

does the GW have an eskom ripple relay in it?

is there a safety function that could cause it to stay OFF for so long?

anyone else experience this?
 
davemc said:
Cool, thanks.

I did some research, and heating the geyser to 60 degree's once a day for at least an hour is a way to kill the bacteria, but in general, not having stagnant warm water standing around for the bacteria to grow is the aim.

The chlorine concentration in the water has to be pretty high for it to take care of the bacteria, but I recon that we can count on the chlorine concentration levels in our water to be good enough to stifle the growth of the bacteria, the question is ... how much.

I guess that I am now stuck.

Do I risk our health-welfare for the electricity savings, and tell people not to inhale through their mouths in showers?
Or do I push the dial back up to 70 degree's and fork out over R700 a month for electricity?
Or ... do I get a different water heating solution?

Bleugh.

Question: Can I program the water-wise product to do the 60 degree's thing once a day for me?
Click to expand...

Really you should just set it to a higher temp and then let it retain that heat during the day. The higher you set it the longer you have hot water and the less you have to reheat. Also the hotter the geyser the less water you have to pull from it.
I think this is where people who put their geysers on timers mess up, if you let the water go cold then you use a LOT of power getting it hot again. If you keep it hot then often you use a lot less power maintaining it.

I think that if I had to program a device to work optimally I would heat it up in the early morning then shut it off at about 7 AM or let it maintain a lower temp. Then let it heat up during the evening (7PM) and maintain a high temp overnight so that its hot in the morning. Obviously different if you bath at night...

There are two different perspectives on this: The one is saving you power and the other is taking the load off the grid. You have to look at both of these to find a good solution. Eventually its going to make more sense when Eskom charge more during the day but I assure you that keeping it off during the day and on at night is the best option.
 
Very handy product..... We have it at R995-00 DIY and R1400-00 installed.
There is also a battery backup which only works for Solar Pumps. Cause if the power goes off you not going too have your geyser working anyway.
 
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Nerfherder said:
Really you should just set it to a higher temp and then let it retain that heat during the day. ....
Click to expand...

The last year I've done numerous experiments and talked to my boet in law who is a senior engineer at Eskom about various ways to cut electricity usage on my geyser.

I use to advocate switching my geyser off most of the day but realities have hit me:

* 1st: As a family we more often than not experienced cold showers as it was not automated.

* 2nd: My electricity usage did not go up in the months where I did not switch it off.

* 3rd: Installing geyser blankets is not a solution for everyone. In some geysers like mine the heat is already lost by the time it reaches the blanket. Your just raising the ambient temperature by 4 degrees when using an R800 blanket. My boet-in-law worked out it will take me 8yrs to recover the cost.


But some solutions:

* Insulating the pipes leading in and out of the geyser. You can even use newspaper (great insulation). This is one place you loose heat and unlike your geyser its not insulated. Minimal cost and can be done using recycled insulation. Go feel the heat of the pipes where the cold & hot water ones enter/exit your geyser

* Turn up the geyser a few degrees hotter as you will use less water. Its cheaper to use 5% more power than to reheat 5% more water.

* Replace your element & thermostat: A clean element is more efficient and also use the correct wattage. Also an old thermostat tends not to give you the results you want. You can do this for under R300 for both and depending on your water quality, you might do this as often as 1yr (like when I lived in Brits) or only every 5yrs.

* Lastly, and this is where my bulk saving came in: Check your other appliances. My biggest electricity waster was not my geyser, it was my old oven and I only discovered this after I replaced it. I now use 50-100 units less a month.


You can also only save so much power and I'm in the situation that I've hit the limit. Saving anything more will cause discomfort (cold showers) and the savings are negligible (save R30 on R600 bill).
 
if you only use your geyser to shower, (ie. only turn the hot tap on and off once a day)
Then I can think the saving of electricity would be +- 10-20% if you turn the geyser off and on during the day.

But if you use hot water to wash dishes, wash the dog, wash multiple bodies ar various times of the day.. then your electricity consumption will grow by a large margin.
Ive measured how much kWh is used to heat up my geyser from cold water to boiling ready water

cold - boiling = 8-10 kWh on our geyser

If I leave the geyser on to do its thing all night without adding cold water.. it uses 12-14kWh when I go look the next morning.

I can't say what type of geyser we are using at home but I do know that turning the geyser off at the right time does save electricity. If you remember to turn it off.. say after 3-4 hours
 
I hope someone can guide me in the right direction here. I was thinking of buying a geyserwise unit but wondering if it would be worth it.

Its only myself and my wife currently staying in our house, may be another addition next year...

Currently we shower in the evening between 6 and 7 so we switch the geyser off from 7 until 16:45.

Would a geyserwise help by saving on electricity or not really? If it will help what timer settings would you recommend and what unit should I get?

Thanks
 
Geyserwise saves you a fortune IF you have a solar geyser - because you set it to run from say 3pm till 8pm only. On a hot sunny day, by 3pm your geyser is super hot, so the element doesn't come on at all. If it's cloudy, then at 3pm your geyser starts making your hot water for you for your evening shower. If you're a morning shower person it's a bit less effective as you'll probably need a boost in the morning, but it still stops you heating water up at 9am, when the sun could do it for you.
The nice thing is the max has programs for weekdays, and for weekends - so if for instance you like morning showers on weekends you can program it to make sure your water is hot for that without having to do it for weekdays as well.

If you don't have solar, it's a waste.
 
I have a normal electric geyser but might get solar later in the year but if you say its a waste now I might aswell not get one now.

Thanks for the help.
 
The_Mowgs said:
I have a normal electric geyser but might get solar later in the year but if you say its a waste now I might aswell not get one now.

Thanks for the help.
Click to expand...

If you're getting solar, you may as well look into it - or get your solar installer to install one for you then.
 
It works like a charm with a solar geyser.
Some nice features is that it has a nighttime mode, where it monitors the solar unit's temperature. If it drops below a certain level it starts slowly circulating warm water from the geyser to the solar panel to stop it from freezing up.
And it also has a holiday mode, where it disables the normal schedulde, but still circulates the water from the geyser to the panel to stop it from over-heating during the day.
 
Compton_effect said:
It works like a charm with a solar geyser.
Some nice features is that it has a nighttime mode, where it monitors the solar unit's temperature. If it drops below a certain level it starts slowly circulating warm water from the geyser to the solar panel to stop it from freezing up.
And it also has a holiday mode, where it disables the normal schedulde, but still circulates the water from the geyser to the panel to stop it from over-heating during the day.
Click to expand...

Only in pumped systems ... :)
 
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