Thanks Folks,
I thought he was talking a bit of bollocks. So definitely, I know what my house runs, during day, idle is 450w, and about 700w at night when sleeping .Difference in 'idle' load is external lights.
The plan is for solar to drive all appliances (washing machine, pool pump, geyser heat pump - max load if all on simultaneously is 4.5kw) during day, so would spec for 8kw inverter, just to be safe. But even then, they all don't run daily.
At night it would be dishwasher and oven as high load and heaters (for winter) but need to sort that out, right now, load is around 2-3kw if blankets and two heaters on.
Batteries , starting small and then increasing capacity - ideally I want 30kwh of energy so I never have to worry about what to turn on
So takeaways, don't deal with that electrician that was recommended ...
Thx again