Home Automation - Smartkit

SauRoNZA said:
Yeah I realised it’s automatic.

The thing with the geyserwise is that it’s a bit more intelligent and lets it cool down by 5 degrees before it kicks in again to warm it up.

I haven’t gone about it exactly scientifically but the quick difference between using it and not using it seemed substantial enough to just keep using it.

I think a lot of power gets wasted through keeping it warm all day versus just warming it all up one shot before needing to use it.

My kettle has this keep warm function and I bet using that for a single hour would far surpass the power usage of just boiling it again on the hour. Same logic applied with geysers.
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Should really think about getting a solar geyser.
 
xrapidx said:
Think anyone that logs to the cloud, you use an API to access the data. Mine is out by about 15%.
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Lekker... Shot... First steps towards taking part of the house off the grid is understanding what things actually use..
 
SauRoNZA said:
Yeah I realised it’s automatic.


I think a lot of power gets wasted through keeping it warm all day versus just warming it all up one shot before needing to use it.

My kettle has this keep warm function and I bet using that for a single hour would far surpass the power usage of just boiling it again on the hour. Same logic applied with geysers.
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This is faulty logic. Your geyser should be very well insulated compared to your kettle. The energy difference between keeping it warm and reheating it is a lot less than you think...
 
spiff said:
Should really think about getting a solar geyser.
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I do think about it but then it hardly justifies the expense.

I spent exactly R1111 on power every month.

I would go solar if this one popped and insurance paid for a new one.
 
Sinbad said:
This is faulty logic. Your geyser should be very well insulated compared to your kettle. The energy difference between keeping it warm and reheating it is a lot less than you think...
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Yeah obviously it’s much better than the kettle.

It’s still in my opinion better overall even if marginally to not have it cooking all day for nobody to use.

Especially considering in my garage it remains at a happy 46 degrees all day in summer when it last ran the night before.

In my specific case it’s wasted energy to keep it topped up to 55.

Not necessarily the same for everyone.
 
SauRoNZA said:
I do think about it but then it hardly justifies the expense.

I spent exactly R1111 on power every month.

I would go solar if this one popped and insurance paid for a new one.
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R13332 a year - that would easily pay for a solar & gas installation

I bit the bullet back in 2010 with solar geyser and this year again with a gas booster geyser - so no power need for heating / cooking etc.
 
spiff said:
R13332 a year - that would easily pay for a solar & gas installation

I bit the bullet back in 2010 with solar geyser and this year again with a gas booster geyser - so no power need for heating / cooking etc.
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Solars run in excess of 40k nowadays.
 
spiff said:
R13332 a year - that would easily pay for a solar & gas installation

I bit the bullet back in 2010 with solar geyser and this year again with a gas booster geyser - so no power need for heating / cooking etc.
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Sure but the reality is all of that usage doesn’t come from the geyser, so the ROI Isn’t quite there.

And I don’t have R13k just splashing around for this.

Which is why I would do it if insurance pays some of it.

If anything I would just go nuts and Powerwall the place using my home loan and never pay Eskom again.
 
SauRoNZA said:
Sure but the reality is all of that usage doesn’t come from the geyser, so the ROI Isn’t quite there.

And I don’t have R13k just splashing around for this.

Which is why I would do it if insurance pays some of it.

If anything I would just go nuts and Powerwall the place using my home loan and never pay Eskom again.
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understood - for me it's not about ROI, which at the current trend will be a lot shorter anyway - it's about not giving money to criminals!
 
spiff said:
understood - for me it's not about ROI, which at the current trend will be a lot shorter anyway - it's about not giving money to criminals!
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Oh I get that for sure.

Like I said I’m very keen to just go balls to the wall but just want to sort some things out.

Once I settle the car or bike I’ll probably start thinking more strongly about it.

While I’m staying in the cheapest per unit slot I’m reasonably happy with it.
 
I'm in the process of going solar with my geyser, and you get "retrofit kits" that convert your standard geyser to solar. +-R14k, including installation, geyserwise controller, lagging, solar circulation pump and panel, and the panel to heat the water.
 
calypso said:
You know how much PV solar you can buy for 40k. Makes no sense to be efficient if producing power is cheaper.
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Not enough to run a geyser ;) Direct heating will always be more efficient than PV to electricity to element... (Unless you use a heatpump I guess?)
 
Sinbad said:
Not enough to run a geyser ;) Direct heating will always be more efficient than PV to electricity to element... (Unless you use a heatpump I guess?)
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My geyser on average consumes 3.5kwh a day, 5 kwh on a bad day in winter.

Im not arguing that direct is far more efficient, but for 40k, is it worth that efficiency?
 
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