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Justipoohs

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Posts posted by Justipoohs

  1. We are south of Upt, 10km.before Keimoes.

    Totally agree with you regards being close to nature ...As for rain I don't see the Kalahari ever having significant rain again, compared to when I arrived from the UK 10 years ago it's less and less every year.

    I have found the evaporator to be far better for my health than aircon, and as you say only on thunderstorm nights is it next to useless.

    What's the standing charge on your Eskom pole? Ours was R875 a month.

  2. 1 hour ago, Kalahari Meerkat said:

    Care to give me/us some details on your evaporative cooler? What make? How large? What's the claimed/specced cooling capacity and what water are you using? (Kanaal water? would require some serious filtering etc.) and finally... What is the power consumption of this cooler? (and I suppose does it cool the whole house or only your bedroom?)

    It's a cool air venito, about five years old, kanaal water but from the treated tank so sediment settler already added ...rated at 200w on setting 3 but on setting 1 it does the job at 80w airflow is 4500 M2/hr and rated for Effective area 50m. It holds about 40 litres of water. Placed in the corridor it cools the whole house, if just in the lounge then it's very cool and back into the corridor for night time cooling ...only time it's useless nos if there's a thunder storm.

    5 years ago it was R8000 from Midas, I see on Takealot now almost identical spec several brands for R4000

  3. 5 hours ago, Buyeye said:

    @Justipoohs embracing the offgrid lifestyle is a term I often use but I actually bought my aircons after installing my inverter and 6 panels and 4 lead acid batteries. On most sunny days 6 panels actually produces a lot of electricity as you can see on my screen shot. On cloudy days you won't need the aircon as much.Screenshot_20210727-104046_ShinePhone.thumb.jpg.c60638e361f304461acf0453ee054809.jpg

    I was running a 18000btu aircon in summer on 6 panels and the wife was very happy.

    What I'm trying to say is since you already have 4 panels another 4 might just be the trick to cool summers in the karoo. A 12000btu inverter aircon would probably peak at 1200watts.

    The fine lines are the aircon going on and off, without the aircon my loads were also 400-600 which meant 6 panels was already overkill.

    The problem is here, outside Upington the cooling, in our case evaporator is needed more through the night in order to sleep so aircon isn't really an option without a 200k solar system.

  4. 9 hours ago, Scorp007 said:

    Good that it turned out very well for you. With a 3kwh usage per day is not too costly. When you have to provide for 20kwh per day and allow for 3 days no sun and off grid then it is not cheap. 

    That's my point surely "going solar" is the perfect moment to re evaluate usesge.

  5. I recently restored an old farmhouse in the Kalahari just outside Upington NC. I rebuild the house with solar power in mind, but was a little scared of the assumed cost. I must point out that  if I was going Solar I wanted to go 100% solar as just the standing charge on the Eskom pole is R850 per month.

    Anyway, earlier this year I decide to take the plunge. The house is three bed, dining room, living room, kitchen, large stoep and a granny flat.

    We also work from home full time.

    We have a gas geyser for hot water and a gas range and oven to cook.

    In the summer, and it's a hell of a summer in the Kalahari we use an evaporator cooler.

    I did the calculations over and over again for daily kW used but still it only came to 3kw. So on that basis I installed 4x305w panels, a 3kw inverter and two 200ah gel batteries. Cost R28000

    So we run a fridge freezer, a chest freezer, 2 x TV, microwave (just for re heat max 5min) lighting, washing machine 1xload per day, charge phones, laptops and the internet modem, pressure pump for the house water and evaporator.

    We have not noticed the difference between Eskom and solar, the batteries seem to use 30% overnight.

    My takeaway is that if you are prepared to look at alternatives to Electric stoves/ovens, and electric geysers and foresake aircon for evaporation then off grid solar need not be an expensive proposition.

     

     

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