Recommendations please?

[Candystore]

My elderly mother lives alone and the only off-the-grid capability she has at the moment is solar panels to heat her geyser.

With winter almost here, how can I get her through it vis-a-vis load shedding? She would mostly need to keep her aircon (for heating) going, and/or an electric blanket.

 

[TheMightyQuin]

I recommend reading the 100's of threads covering this topic that inundates this forum.

 

[BBSA]

Gas heater?

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

Gas heater?

probably the best option for her, simple, relatively cheap and reliable,
unless you want to go down the road of Generators , Petrol and cranking it when the load shedding starts.

 

[Pak Fa Fui]

Get her a puffy poncho

 

[AlphaJohn]

 

[leon.davibe]

Yea heating via batteries becomes really expensive really quick

Short term heating ie boiling a kettle 4-5 min is doable running heating hours not so much ie

ie the aircon if you have an efficient one lets say 1.3kw
Would not pull through on a single 5kwh battery and naturally getting them full is why you would then need a 5kw inverter to get it full

So thay would knock you R40k + with runtime limitation or cost bump up with an extra battery +25-30k

Hence why the guys say get a gas heater


the electric blanket so lets say 50w is doable that can be done with a smaller system

ie any system that can run a tv can run that

If wallet impact doesn't matter you can do anything

The eye watering cost tends to frighten away

 

[B-1]

Just send her to Spain for a holiday from 16 May to 15 August.

 

[Snyper564]

Go with this

 

[RedViking]

The cadac one. The Alva is very ugly.

Check this out on takealot: Cadac - 3 Panel Rollabout Heater

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Remind granny to keep a window open or let in some fresh air every now and then.

You don't heat with batteries unless you have a narly system.

 

[RedViking]

Just send her to Spain for a holiday from 16 May to 15 August.

Or send her to Richards Bay. Will safe on water and geyser as she won't need to shower. Everything stinks there anyways.

 

[Candystore]

Thanks to those folks who offered useful responses.