Hi guys. I am looking to invest in a Titanium element with pv roof panels to heat our geyser. We live in George, WC. Quite a lot of cloudy/rainy days in the year. Also, we live in a rented house (but can move a system as the landlord is not 'funny' in that regard). What has been your experience? Any other suggestions? I know the outlay is quite a lot, but my husband is very handy and can do the installation himself. Thanks in advance!! 

Interesting. Wonder how the efficiency of this compares to evacuated tube.

It probably makes sense if you looking to retrofit an existing geyser.

Thing is, you have to install at least 2kw of PV not?

Now, once the water is hot, you have all that potential energy just sitting there wasting away

 

Me personally I am extremely happy with my vacuum tube system. It works great and takes the same roof space of 3 x 250W PV panels.

 

Remember that with solar water heating, you will have to double your existing geyser size.

At least have 100L storage per person in the household.

The thing is the weather here. We do not have sun everyday. I understand the pv units absorb better?

Both PV and vacuum tubes works in slight overcast and cloudy weather. They do not need FULL sunshine to work.

As the PV and Titanium element combination is very new, I have not seen comparisons between the cost and performance as yet.

 

What I can give you from my personal experience...

Gas geysers work great for occasional use, like washbasins and showers. Not that good for a bath. Installation can be complicated.

Heatpumps is great in summer, but performance does go down in winter. They do not work without power. Watch out for the cost of service contracts.

Solar water heaters works well if sized and installed correctly. They can work without power. They also have electrical backup.

We've got 2 low pressure solar geysers for our house.

 

The idea is to have one geyser that will store warmer water during the night if we've used water from the other one.

 

The bathroom of the main bedroom only has solar water heating.

 

For the "other" half of the house (bathroom and scullery) there's an 8l/m gas geyser as well. The sink, hand basin and shower each has a 3rd hot water tap supplied from the gas geyser.

 

Gas geysers are dead cheap to buy, and I'm sure you'll be able to work out a way to install one, together with a low pressure solar geyser, and save many thousands of rands on the outlay.

Prominent solar installer in Cape Town, when I asked him: Geyser heating, which one is better?

a) PV heated geysers?

b ) EV tubes heated geysers?

 

His response: EV tubes are far superior.

A m2 of PV panels produces +-5kwh per month.

A EV tube setup does that in equivalent water heating by 12.30pm.

 

EV tubes rely on infrared, which you still get a lot of under clouds. See the burn's vaalies on the beaches on cloudy day.   

Thanks you guys for all the comments! The Terrible Triplett, do you know what the cost of the ev tubes are? Thanks

Depends on which make and models. They are not expensive, about R300 a tube at one stage, the think ones I bought many years ago.

 

I learned back then that the thinner the tube, the cheaper they are. Mine are quite think, but are not supplied anymore. Was too good and too expensive. 

But, the supplier can import if and when I need.

 

Ask a few installers for a demo of their tubes, and replacement tube costs.

evacuated tubes from a local supplier here in cape town are around R8500 for 24 x tubes, then you need the manifold and frame prolly around R2000 more