DeepBass9

How do you manage to use up to 50kWh per day if it is not the geyser?

Start with the solar geyser, you should be able to drop 10+ kWh/day from that alone. 

Step 1 is to replace your geysers with solar geysers. That is an easy win, and you should save 30-40% of your power bill.
What is your cost per kWh of electricity (with fixed costs included), and monthly usage? 
From your total monthly usage you can work out an daily average usage and from there you can size a solar system appropriately. 

Hello Everyone 
I thought this might be worth a read for you - https://itssolar.co.za/water-heating/a-comparison-of-pv-solar-thermal-gas-and-heat-pump-water-heating-systems/
 

It doesn't suit everyone's installation,  but a low pressure solar geyser works much better than a high pressure system for the simple reason that as soon as you open a tap on a high pressure system, the cold water starts mixing with the hot water, and cools the water down quite quickly. Also the high pressure geysers don't heat the water directly, but use a heat exchanger, which is less effective than low pressure geysers where the water is inside the heating tube.
With a low pressure geyser, if you set the water inlet to fill quite slowly, then you can use just about the entire volume of hot water before the cold water has any effect.
We have a 300litre high pressure and a number of 150litre low pressure geysers, and the low pressure work much better.  

I'm using a JSM 6kVA Inverter and microcare chargers. Quite old school so no comms to the batteries. 8kWh is still half of 15kWh, for same cost. 

We have a gas stove/oven  and an induction plate. That induction plate is really nice for when the sun is shining as you can adjust the power from 200w up to 1800w on our model. So I have a stainless steel whistling kettle for boiling water, but you can also do stuff like put a flat bottomed cast iron pot on it and let it simmer all day at low power for making stews and soups etc.  
Also we have a wood burning stove (falkirk jewel) which is very popular in winter, and a wood fired pizza oven which is great for roasting things, baking bread and making pizzas of course!

And over estimate how much actual useful wind you get.

I replaced all 3 diodes, but still no joy. What I can see now though is that one of the 3 cell arrays is completely dead, and producing zero volts even in bright sunlight. I believe the problem is therefore a defect on the panel, either in manufacturing, or a microcrack from a hailstone or something like that.
So it looks like I will have to replace the panel.  I will keep the old panel though, and just rewire it to be a 200W 24V panel, which I'm sure I'll find a use for somewhere else. I have a cottage that runs on an ancient 50W panel to drive some 12V LED lights which I'm sure could make better use of a 200W panel.

Yes it is good for 50v 10A. Should be OK
 

10sq050  pec  4159 will do the trick. GT Electronics had the in stock. They are in Boksburg

The 1st thing is check the diodes. It might be that one of the 3 sets of diodes are in bypass. They are not expensive once located which one. Check the voltage for each set of 2 columns. This is while the whole panel is in the sun.
I have had a new panel going open circuit and would cause not current flowing in the series string. When it was bypassed just like before I added this 4th panel all was OK. If I did not have graphs to show the voltage and amps when connecting 3 and 4 the seller might have not believed it was possible. Had to wait for a replacement from CoCT and all is still well 3 years on.

I'll give that a try. The box on the back of the panel is glued on so I am going to have to break that off before I can see inside. Here's a video on how to test : 
I think probably the easiest is to just replace the panel. Its only one panel and they are not too expensive. 

I usually suffer from buyer's remorse every time i buy something. I have had my system for about 6 months now and can't think of a better purchase that i have made. From my calculations it will take about 6 years for the system to pay itself. Not mentioning the convenience as well... 

I am not an expert on this, but as far as I know all earth's must be bonded together, so the newly installed earth rod must be bonded to your other earth's. As I understand it, it is so all earth points have the same potential. I may be wrong through. 

I am not an expert on this, but as far as I know all earth's must be bonded together, so the newly installed earth rod must be bonded to your other earth's. As I understand it, it is so all earth points have the same potential. I may be wrong through. 

I would pay careful attention to balancing the blades/rotor assembly. Vibration at high RPM will quickly shake things to pieces.
Great project!

I would pay careful attention to balancing the blades/rotor assembly. Vibration at high RPM will quickly shake things to pieces.
Great project!

Update now that it has rained. It got really hot before the rain came with 35 degree days, and these seedlings would have all expired if it wasn't for the mulching. The bare ground in other places was too hot to walk on, so the plants would have shrivelled.
We are getting a few weeds coming up now, so I just go around with a weedeater every now and then, and put some more straw close to plants. Or just stomp on the weeds and put straw down. Easy!
Tomatoes being staked up with first fruit:

Squash, pattipans, beans etc:

Pumpkins, hubbards etc:

 
 

Update now that it has rained. It got really hot before the rain came with 35 degree days, and these seedlings would have all expired if it wasn't for the mulching. The bare ground in other places was too hot to walk on, so the plants would have shrivelled.
We are getting a few weeds coming up now, so I just go around with a weedeater every now and then, and put some more straw close to plants. Or just stomp on the weeds and put straw down. Easy!
Tomatoes being staked up with first fruit:

Squash, pattipans, beans etc:

Pumpkins, hubbards etc:

 
 

Kenton on sea has always had a water shortage
40 years ago the houses had cement tanks with hand pumps
Today its plastic tanks and electric pumps
I have 4 x 10000l and a pump that I run off solar
As the town water used to have a bad taste the toilets were fed from the town and all the rest from the tanks
So I only feed the toilets with town water and filter the water for drinking and cooking, unfiltered for bathing and washing.
Can switch all feeds to municipal or tanks

There is another thread on deep mulching, and I have been doing that for a good few years, and every year the soil gets better, and the plants grow better. Here is the current winter's veggies:
 

Basically this idea arose from seeing what could be done with leftover feed bales, which then lead to an epiphany about nutrient cycles and a better understanding of soil characteristics. Google and read about permaculture principles as that informs a lot of what I am doing.
I do use wood ash as a fertilisers, particularly putting it around fruit trees as it has lots of K and other alkaline oxides.
We try and incorporate anything organic into the whole system so for any 'waste' the logic goes like this:
1. Will the dog eat it? Yes/ No go to next option:
2. Will the poultry eat it? Yes/ No go to next option:
3. Will the Livestock eat it? Yes/ No go to next option:
4. Is it compostible? Yes/ No go to next option:
5. Can we use it for something? Yes/ No go to next option:
6. Is it recyclable? Yes/ No go to next option:
7. No? Lets not buy this again!
So anything organic goes back into the soil, either directly, or via the digestive tract of an animal or by composting, which in turn grows into something to feed back into the process.
 

Basically this idea arose from seeing what could be done with leftover feed bales, which then lead to an epiphany about nutrient cycles and a better understanding of soil characteristics. Google and read about permaculture principles as that informs a lot of what I am doing.
I do use wood ash as a fertilisers, particularly putting it around fruit trees as it has lots of K and other alkaline oxides.
We try and incorporate anything organic into the whole system so for any 'waste' the logic goes like this:
1. Will the dog eat it? Yes/ No go to next option:
2. Will the poultry eat it? Yes/ No go to next option:
3. Will the Livestock eat it? Yes/ No go to next option:
4. Is it compostible? Yes/ No go to next option:
5. Can we use it for something? Yes/ No go to next option:
6. Is it recyclable? Yes/ No go to next option:
7. No? Lets not buy this again!
So anything organic goes back into the soil, either directly, or via the digestive tract of an animal or by composting, which in turn grows into something to feed back into the process.
 

Next up squash:

 
And tomatoes: