Geyserwise vs Geyser timer

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aomar296

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Hi all

I'm looking at installing standard Geyser timer and I'm wondering if it's worth the extra investment in getting the Geyserwise unit instead

Please explain me what is the difference between these units and which one do you have?

Thanks so much
 
aomar296 said:
Hi all

I'm looking at installing standard Geyser timer and I'm wondering if it's worth the extra investment in getting the Geyserwise unit instead

Please explain me what is the difference between these units and which one do you have?

Thanks so much
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Geyser timer will turn the geyser on and off according to what you set, when the timer is on and the thermostat is below what you set the cut off the geyser will turn on until the thermostat kicks in or the timer goes off.

Geyserwise comes with its own thermostat so you can see the temperature on the unit. It also has the same function as the geyser timer so you can set time periods the geyser must maintain whatever temperature you set it at.

Geyserwise won't necessarily save you money but the visual thermostat is a big plus for me and with some fiddling you can most probably wire the push button switch to your home automation or read the value of the thermostat and display it.
 
IF we had smart meterz and a system of midnight electricity being cheaper, then a timer would work wonders, now you will simply be condensing whatever is needed to heat up the water into a shorter period UNLESS of course you have one of those LP geysers from the 70s like my home had when I bought it, you could fry eggs on that thing. Chucked it out 1st thing
 
The geyserwise regulates the temperature in the geyser that allows additional energy savings, which a timer does not do

This is the response I got from the sales rep

I wanted someone's first hand experience on this. Is it true?
 
aomar296 said:
The geyserwise regulates the temperature in the geyser that allows additional energy savings, which a timer does not do

This is the response I got from the sales rep

I wanted someone's first hand experience on this. Is it true?
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All you would be doing is creating a finer band of histeresis imho. The analog temperature probe may act faster than a simple bimetal strip.

But I have never actually bothered to do a study though, and last year I thew out all my electric heating appliances and went gas. Dropped my bill by about R700 accounting for gas refill in both the house and the flat (maybe they were mining btc and using the geyser and excuse, but then I installed kwh meters and the gas sysyems, been a lot better since lol)
 
Geyserwise replaces your thermostat and uses a much bigger tolerance of I recall 5-degrees before turning the geyser back on.

It’s not a bad system and generally not really all that expensive.

They do also have options to replace your element with a more economic one which is more expensive and would only do that if you had a problem.

Had a Geyserwise and it’s nice to see the temperature and know exactly what’s happening, but when the power supply blew over Christmas I had trouble finding a replacement and opted to simply install a timer.

If you can figure out your timing well enough and especially with a Smart Timer which you can turn off remotely you can achieve much the same.

At present my summer time daily usage is 5kw.
 
Last edited:
aomar296 said:
The geyserwise regulates the temperature in the geyser that allows additional energy savings, which a timer does not do

This is the response I got from the sales rep

I wanted someone's first hand experience on this. Is it true?
Click to expand...
Sales rep is just being a sales rep. Savings from putting a geyser on a timer are virtually negligible. Geyserwise is very handy if you have a solar collector, but pointless otherwise.
 
Speedster said:
Sales rep is just being a sales rep. Savings from putting a geyser on a timer are virtually negligible. Geyserwise is very handy if you have a solar collector, but pointless otherwise.
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I echo this
 
Speedster said:
Sales rep is just being a sales rep. Savings from putting a geyser on a timer are virtually negligible. Geyserwise is very handy if you have a solar collector, but pointless otherwise.
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Don’t agree in the slightest.

But it can be very tricky to get the timing right where it’s meaningful.

Also going to vary vastly with different family sizes and geyser sizes etc.
 
SauRoNZA said:
Don’t agree in the slightest.

But it can be very tricky to get the timing right where it’s meaningful.

Also going to vary vastly with different family sizes and geyser sizes etc.
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Well bring the data to back that up and prove us naysayers wrong (a geyserwise spec sheet will not suffice)

I agree with a solar collector with a backup element paired to a timer, limit it so that it doesn't heat the water at 2am in the morning when the sun can do all the hard work tomorrow
 
Speedster said:
Where is isotherm wrong?

Does switching off the geyser really save energy? | ISOTHERM

You can save electricity by managing your hot water use.We look at 4 Factors affecting energy use and give you 6 Ways to save electricity.
www.isotherm.co.za www.isotherm.co.za
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I’ll make one point they don’t cover.

If you go away for the weekend and you just leave your geyser on vs turning it off did you or did you not waste power for 2-3 days on something you never used?

Insulation is all fine and dandy but the geyser would have gone on a number of times in its disuse.

Now recall I said Smart timer. So you’ll say yes but you needed all that power to warn it back up when you got home, but the thing is mine only goes automatically when I return home and then gets stopped again at pre-defined time so it can only use so much power.

I do it a bit differently in that I only let it use as much power as I’m willing for it to use, which can’t be achieved just leaving it on.
 
gertvanjoe said:
Well bring the data to back that up and prove us naysayers wrong (a geyserwise spec sheet will not suffice)

I agree with a solar collector with a backup element paired to a timer, limit it so that it doesn't heat the water at 2am in the morning when the sun can do all the hard work tomorrow
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Did the whole song and dance about a year ago and posted it here somewhere.

Since then I’ve killed the Grafana instance that was tracking it as my original smart switch died.

It’s not going to work in all instances like I said based on size and habits but it certainly can.

If you have a Geyser with a 3kW element and you only want to spend 6kw a day on it then it’s as simple as putting it on for 2hours only.

You can’t do the same without a timer.

Therefore it’s very easy to restrict how much power you want to dedicate to it and very easy to see how it would use less power than simply staying on.
 
SauRoNZA said:
I’ll make one point they don’t cover.

If you go away for the weekend and you just leave your geyser on vs turning it off did you or did you not waste power for 2-3 days on something you never used?
Click to expand...

You don't need a timer for that. You can simply flip the switch
 
Speedster said:
You don't need a timer for that. You can simply flip the switch
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You’ll soon learn that’s very annoying and they break rather quickly.

Point stands if you only want to spend X on heating water it’s very easy to achieve with a timer.
 
SauRoNZA said:
Did the whole song and dance about a year ago and posted it here somewhere.

Since then I’ve killed the Grafana instance that was tracking it as my original smart switch died.

It’s not going to work in all instances like I said based on size and habits but it certainly can.

If you have a Geyser with a 3kW element and you only want to spend 6kw a day on it then it’s as simple as putting it on for 2hours only.

You can’t do the same without a timer.

Therefore it’s very easy to restrict how much power you want to dedicate to it and very easy to see how it would use less power than simply staying on.
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Sure, you can limit power usage, but that'll also imply colder water as you're effectively limiting the amount of water you can heat in a day. My point is using the same amount of hot water at the same temperature, your savings from a timer are negligible
 
Speedster said:
Sure, you can limit power usage, but that'll also imply colder water as you're effectively limiting the amount of water you can heat in a day. My point is using the same amount of hot water at the same temperature, your savings from a timer are negligible
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Yes, different targets ultimately but that’s exactly what gets overlooked is people’s motivations for wanting to do this.

The variance in temperature offered by the Geyserwise does offer a bit more over a conventional thermostat and does run less and saves you money but it’s also more expensive to install.

It should pay for itself within a year if it saves you a kw a day.

Then there’s also winter and summer which are vastly different.
 
SauRoNZA said:
Yes, different targets ultimately but that’s exactly what gets overlooked is people’s motivations for wanting to do this.

The variance in temperature offered by the Geyserwise does offer a bit more over a conventional thermostat and does run less and saves you money but it’s also more expensive to install.

It should pay for itself within a year if it saves you a kw a day.

Then there’s also winter and summer which are vastly different.
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Ah yes, but the question implied was to save electricity, not have a colder shower.

But for the record, anyone looking into a timer, absolutely wire it so that the timer switches a high current relay and DO NOT wire it directly, a year later you will either come to realise that the timer is no longer switching off for who knows how long due to fused contacts (good scenario) or wake up to a cold shower (bad scenario)

Those poor contacts inside a timer are not meant to handle geysers
 
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