GMAC

Through summer depending on loads in the evening like Aircon or how long the microwave works every morning my battery are are in the low 70 to 60% .
In winter as the days are shorter any thing from low 50 to 60% .
Batterys are charged to 100% in summer around around 9:30 am 
Best is never allow your battery's to discharge under 50% for battery life and rainy days . 
Sound like to me you need one more battery to go off grid but normally adding batterys means solar panels as well 

I would not recommend mixing batterys like that can just think strange things will start happening as the pack starts to run down.
How do you know the batterys are fully charged 100% as you not communicating with cable and so you using volts for setup ?

Use more than one start and stop time time during the same day. Your start time is later than your stop time as it spans across 2 different days.
Start it say at 00h01 to 06h00 for timer 1 and then add a 2nd start at 18h00 to 23h59 and see if it makes a difference. The idea is to start at the start of the same day.

From NERSA's website:
The following activities are exempt from the requirement to apply for and hold a licence under the Act, and these activities are not required to be registered with NERSA:
5.1 The operation of a generation facility with or without energy storage for the sole purpose of providing standby or backup electricity in the event of, and for no 
longer than, an electricity supply interruption (clause 2.2.1 of the Notice).
If NERSA was concerned about our safety, backup generators would have to be registered. They are probably concerned that you are getting energy at a cheaper rate than what Eskom can supply. Register, and I suspect they will tax your daylight. Civil disobedience may be our best defence.
I run my inverter off-grid.

I think people tend to not realize the inverter itself is drawing power 24/7 to power itself.  So if there is no solar input this additional draw eventually comes from the grid.
E.G. in my case this is a rough estimation based on the difference between actual load and PV/Battery input/output.

That is about 3.5kw per day of additional load from just the inverter so if you can't offset that with solar input that is getting added to your bill irrespective if you can charge and discharge your battery back into the grid. 
Another assumption here will be there is no bidirectional meter installed so it might also be illegal and unsafe in that instance and if there is a bidirectional meter selling back is usually at a lower rate than buying so that will also operate at a loss if there is no solar input.

Through summer depending on loads in the evening like Aircon or how long the microwave works every morning my battery are are in the low 70 to 60% .
In winter as the days are shorter any thing from low 50 to 60% .
Batterys are charged to 100% in summer around around 9:30 am 
Best is never allow your battery's to discharge under 50% for battery life and rainy days . 
Sound like to me you need one more battery to go off grid but normally adding batterys means solar panels as well 

If I under right you want your geyser as part of your essentials . Best then. Is try look or have your geyser test to find out what wats heating element is installed in your geyser . 
If like most 150L there's an 4kw element then it leave only 1kw power for house appliances at night  so just switching on an micro or kettle will cause the inverter to shut down.
So this the reason for why  geyser are on non essential line on 5kw setups .
What some do is install an 100l geyser and have an 2kw element installed with an smart geyser timer allowing you to operate your geyser from Android app and run the geyser mid day say from 11:00 till 14:00 but this only really works if you are 2 or 3 and all shower  as heating up an geyser from an 5 kw battery at night is going to drain your battery . 

I have
5.5 kw ecco inverter 
10kw lithium
4400kw solar .
main load through the day is the swimming pool 
I'm looking at an 12000btu Aircon there's 2 option the invert AC  and the one speed AC .
From what I have been told the invert AC is more inverter friendly as it does not spike the inverter on startup and does not surge the inverter every time the pump starts up .
(1) the invert AC supposed to use less electricy on the long run if it is the right size for the room but does take longer to cool the room .
(2) The invert AC is more expensive .
 
so the question is .
is the invert AC worth the extra cost when it comes to running from 5kw inverters?
 
my brother in law that also lives on the property has an old one speed 9000btu  AC and it does spike on start up to 4.5kw and does draw around 1.2kw almost constantly . 

Thanks so far .
I now decided and ordered an 12000btu invert DIY pre charged AC.
  .
What now will be interesting is to see how my brother in law's that also stays on the property  9000btu one speed  AC  compares to my 12000btu invert AC .
Update soon. 
 

Please keep us posted. Beginning of Dec I did some load tests on a 18000 BTU inverter Aircon. Starting is only when fan is running. Then ramps up a few minutes later when compressor kicks in. 

Looks like not only solar users, if you are like my mom, use less than 300kWh/month, since she's frugal, no solar, then they'll punish her for this, this is the kind of kak that will cause power shortages again, since there is no incentive to consume less, the more you use the less the price per kWh, I wish these wombats would go out of business...

Don't understand why you would want to switch of Eskom as the inverter if setup right should switch over to solar automatically. 
Now in summer the inverter should switch over any time from 6am if using SOL and if you using SUB the fading out of Eskom should happen any time before 6 am .
By switch of Eskom should not damage the inverter as it's designed to run with out Eskom and to take constant power failures .
By managing your system you can use high power appliances throw the day even if there's no Eskom as solar will carry most of the load on good days 

I can only assume switching off eskom
completely eliminates a trickle feed if any. They also mentioned something about not being able to change the settings not sure as I have not used that inverter before but that could be why they do it manually. I am not sure what the effect could be on the switches or if municipality will pick the off and one constantly and have issue but essentially my inverter does this based on settings from 6/7am to about 6pm 98% of my needs are met be solar unless we use the oven in the night. 

I disconnect myself from the grid to eliminate the trickle feed of my Sunsynk to synch with the grid as well as not be exposed to the voltage swings of Eskom throughout the day. If I see that my batteries will not last me throughout the night, then I reconnect to the grid.
I use a 63A smart breaker for that, which is connected between my main breaker and my inverter feed breaker

Don't understand why you would want to switch of Eskom as the inverter if setup right should switch over to solar automatically. 
Now in summer the inverter should switch over any time from 6am if using SOL and if you using SUB the fading out of Eskom should happen any time before 6 am .
By switch of Eskom should not damage the inverter as it's designed to run with out Eskom and to take constant power failures .
By managing your system you can use high power appliances throw the day even if there's no Eskom as solar will carry most of the load on good days 

Inverter low DC cut off % is set by some 15 % and otheres 20% when it comes to volts this will depend on amount cells and cell chemistry of cell .
If you using com cable then % is used I'd you not then volts like I say will depend on the battery .

I'm off grid with only .
5kw inverter 
10kw lithium 
And 8 550w solar panels .
3 in the house 
How this possible I keep my loads down .
1 fridge . Gas stove and water warmer (geyser) in summer we use up a 9kg every 2 month and in winter  6 weeks on 9kg gas  . Swimming pool and water pressure pump .
By the morning the lithium in winter  percentage is between 55% and 63% depending on if the microwave is used to cook with or not and in  Summer between 62%and 70% . 
For me going solar is much cheaper on the long run and worth the cost .
 
 

I'm off grid with only .
5kw inverter 
10kw lithium 
And 8 550w solar panels .
3 in the house 
How this possible I keep my loads down .
1 fridge . Gas stove and water warmer (geyser) in summer we use up a 9kg every 2 month and in winter  6 weeks on 9kg gas  . Swimming pool and water pressure pump .
By the morning the lithium in winter  percentage is between 55% and 63% depending on if the microwave is used to cook with or not and in  Summer between 62%and 70% . 
For me going solar is much cheaper on the long run and worth the cost .
 
 

Why not  just buy an geysertech  Pi2R micro geyser solar unit and  install 3+ panels to it  . 

Don't think heat from the car engine going to be a big issue not good but not an big issue .
You have to worry when people continue to use lithium batterys with a bad cell and this lithium is located in the house and you have spoken a number of times to them about fire . 

Don't think heat from the car engine going to be a big issue not good but not an big issue .
You have to worry when people continue to use lithium batterys with a bad cell and this lithium is located in the house and you have spoken a number of times to them about fire . 

I doubt it's a matter of don't know what they talking about. 
In some instances being able to use 10 in series of the 460W might suit some roofs. Then it leaves 4 panels on a different roof and different direction. 
Perhaps one must ask those that are against 550W what are their reasons. 

A lot of similar reports if you search the site. A number of the same outcomes as you experienced. 

About 3 week ago I install more solar panels and decides to play around with the combination series and parallel in the end series was best so I also say series if you can 

300 to 400 Wats constantly sound a bit high just for charging as when lithiums reach full charge accordingly to volts set the amps drop to almost nothing as does Wats . 
So what has change 6 month ago .
Most of the time people have noticed an grid usage increase after an back up system has been installed but you noticed this only 6 month ago .
Best have the lithium inspected .
The inverter will show on  the display on battery charge  amps and Wats so check and see if the battery is really being charged at a constant 300wat+ .