Solar Geyser - Why not?

The Door said:
I don't understand how you can have issues with electric solar panels but you have space for solar heating? From what I can see, solar water heating takes up at least 2x electric solar panels. Add just one more and you can probably get by with minimal AC heating and you have the start of a solar array.
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If you saw the footprint and surrounds I think you'd understand. The main house roof is perfect facing square on north, but even leaving aesthetics aside on a listed old house, the massive (I'd imagine 15-20m high) palm tree shading the roof doesn't help. Neighbours east and west have huge trees (as I also do to the south side)

But there is a bit of an L shape at the back butting away from the house for which we have had galvanised frames made up to take the 2 x solar panels for the geysers. One for the house, one for the cottage in the garden (surrounded by trees). We could perhaps squeeze another one on there, but with electricity usage at R3000+ a month we need a lot more than that to make a dent.

So just now the focus is on beating loadshedding and getting the bills down a bit as we are pretty limited in other options.
 
The Door said:
Do you have yard available in an area near a boundary perhaps? Pole mounts might also work.

Solar Panel Mounting Structures – Sinetech

sinetech.co.za sinetech.co.za
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Too many surrounding trees on the east and west boundaries. I have a cottage roof set against the west boundary that faces east and can get the morning sun, but that is as good as it gets without resorting to some drastic measures I'm afraid.
 
Benedict A55h0le said:
Thanks for the info. Just to be clear, I want to go full solar. Then I should not be getting a solar geyser. I should rather buy more panels and use the solar system to heat my old geyser?
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100% the cost of one solar geyser is typically the price of 3kwh solar array. 2 the price of 6kw.

The benefit of pure solar is the WHOLE house benefits not just hot water for a few hours.
 
Spizz said:
If you saw the footprint and surrounds I think you'd understand. The main house roof is perfect facing square on north, but even leaving aesthetics aside on a listed old house, the massive (I'd imagine 15-20m high) palm tree shading the roof doesn't help. Neighbours east and west have huge trees (as I also do to the south side)

But there is a bit of an L shape at the back butting away from the house for which we have had galvanised frames made up to take the 2 x solar panels for the geysers. One for the house, one for the cottage in the garden (surrounded by trees). We could perhaps squeeze another one on there, but with electricity usage at R3000+ a month we need a lot more than that to make a dent.

So just now the focus is on beating loadshedding and getting the bills down a bit as we are pretty limited in other options.
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I would say 1st solve the major problems instead of paying money to put band-aids on smaller issues. Get sun your roof or sell the house and invest in the new house` setup. The problem is now that every purchaser of a property 1st thing checks for sun on the roof so your property value has declined because of load shedding.
 
ahmedy said:
I have heard of heat pumps but would need some explanation on how that would benefit of that would also be drawing electricity to be used, I could be wrong and probably am and this my reason for asking this group
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Works similar to aircons.

A crude example would be that you supply the heat pump with 1 kW of power, it converts it to 3-4 kW to power the geyser...
 
We installed a Solar Geyser just before COVID (2020). Costed ~ R18 000 at the time.

Do not think we will every make that back in saving because we using 2 units per day less now. That is R1800 a year.
 
GrootVoet said:
We installed a Solar Geyser just before COVID (2020). Costed ~ R18 000 at the time.

Do not think we will every make that back in saving because we using 2 units per day less now. That is R1800 a year.
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Wait for next years tariffs and calculate again.
 
GrootVoet said:
We installed a Solar Geyser just before COVID (2020). Costed ~ R18 000 at the time.

Do not think we will every make that back in saving because we using 2 units per day less now. That is R1800 a year.
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You must use virtually zero hot water?
 
Snyper564 said:
100% the cost of one solar geyser is typically the price of 3kwh solar array. 2 the price of 6kw.

The benefit of pure solar is the WHOLE house benefits not just hot water for a few hours.
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Also PV can go anywhere. If you get a solar geyser you are limited to location.
 
Benedict A55h0le said:
I would say 1st solve the major problems instead of paying money to put band-aids on smaller issues. Get sun your roof or sell the house and invest in the new house` setup. The problem is now that every purchaser of a property 1st thing checks for sun on the roof so your property value has declined because of load shedding.
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I take your point, but I'll never sell my house so that's not an issue. Issue is I need to chop the palm tree down without getting divorced or arrested.

In the meantime the solar geysers give us a bit of relief wrt the load on the inverter in the house from the sub db in the cottage (which we rent out) and will also hopefully drop the costs from the monthly bill somewhat.
 
We have a Solar Geyser , normally use hot water at night and no one showed in morning.

Tank temperature too low in morning would have to switch element on if wanted to use hot wat in morning.
 
GrootVoet said:
We installed a Solar Geyser just before COVID (2020). Costed ~ R18 000 at the time.

Do not think we will every make that back in saving because we using 2 units per day less now. That is R1800 a year.
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Remember we are in deep winter now. Your savings will increase come Spring (September) when temperatures go higher
 
Operator said:
Remember we are in deep winter now. Your savings will increase come Spring (September) when temperatures go higher
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Feels like we're already going into spring. But anyway as temperatures rise, hot water usage decreases. And the geyser therefore doesn't need to be heated as much.

I don't know anyone who uses the same water temperature in winter and summer. So would argue that savings actually decrease as temperatures climb...
 
thehuman said:
We have a Solar Geyser , normally use hot water at night and no one showed in morning.

Tank temperature too low in morning would have to switch element on if wanted to use hot wat in morning.
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The Door said:
We have solar geyser too and it's hot in the morning... not sure what's different with ours.
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Do you guys rely solely on the solar to heat the water or do you have a timer or boost from the grid?
 
Speedster said:
You must use virtually zero hot water?
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We do 8 showers a day in total.
The Door said:
Does your solar geyser have an element connected to a timer that switches on at night? If it does, your thermostat temperature is set too high and it's heating already hot water at night.
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My setup is a solar geyser without a element that feeds into a geyser with a element, its called a pre feed config.

I have a Geyserwise where I can set the temp and timing so I monitor and change it as needed. During summer the geyser is almost never switch on. Winter we run it for ~ 3 hours a day.
 
GrootVoet said:
We do 8 showers a day in total.

My setup is a solar geyser without a element that feeds into a geyser with a element, its called a pre feed config.

I have a Geyserwise where I can set the temp and timing so I monitor and change it as needed. During summer the geyser is almost never switch on. Winter we run it for ~ 3 hours a day.
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And you're only saving 2kWh per day?
 
Speedster said:
And you're only saving 2kWh per day?
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Agreed... Crazy.
8 showers... Depends how long, but let's assume 5 mins at 10L/min = 400L of water... Assuming 50/50 hot cold, that needs 200L of hot water.
No wonder they are still using electricity!
 
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