27 minutes ago, Erastus said:

Let me share with you the past 24 Hr graph.  Based on facts not gut-feel my view but hard core facts:

classical graph of 24 hour usage.  For the past 24 hr we used 60 min power from the grid (Yellow line)
Timers are back on.
It started yesterday morning at 05h30.
At 06H30 the sun started warming the glass tubes
07H00 somebody bathed the geyser was pulled down to 39C and a quick heat by the holding tank 25 minutes later the geyser was back at 54C
The complete day went by not a single minute power was used.
Late last night the using of hot water 20 unit
During the night a top up of 15 minutes

Thus for 24 hr it is 25 + 25 + 15= 65 minutes of heating or 3.1Kwhr
 

My feedback to the grid yesterday after all my home usage was paid  I still had 38Kwhr spare that went to the rest of the account.

The only maintenance is the small circulation pump @ +/- R850. 

Here comes the trick:

1. Free water
2. Free power
3. Free hot water
4. Account paid via solar and some spare

What I will do is add another 10 or 15 panels I recon on a "colder" day that will keep the water good.

If I had a fancy timer or a heat pump or gas the cost would have been a lot more

Grid tied & Vacuum tubes and surplus solar power is unbeatable based on facts not assumptions or gut-feel.

Clearly shows all the timers is wasted money so is gas as you always HAVE to pay.

Do it right and hot water is totally free

No other system with expensive timers, heat pumps and or gas or even combination  can give you this.  If you run a geyser from batteries that is even more expensive.

If you have to use batteries or gas that's something else.

I red you have Eskom it will pay you to become grid tie and you then can even get your money back on the expensive batteries and ...   😇

 

Your setup is impressive but it is tied to the power grid.

What's your plan if there is a fault with the powerstation lasting a week and it's raining the whole week?

This is a rare situation which I have experienced twice, first was 4-5 years when I was living in Roodepoort and the substation went up in flames. It was quite the show but then we didn't have electricity for over a week. 

Second time was this year in Pietermaritzburg where an overloaded powerstation blew up.  

I would love to feed in to the grid and will do so as soon as the municipality says I can. In the meantime I have to make my halfway offgrid setup work best for me.

Fully offgrid would be adding a gas fired generator and gas stove for me. But that means upgrading the inverter to a one compatible with the generator.

 

Edited December 9, 20214 yr by Buyeye

My suggestion, go on holiday for a week

you cant plan for absolutely everything imo, solar is an averages situation, and over sizing for a rare event may not make sense. 

On 2021/12/07 at 11:06 PM, Rehaan said:

Hi Guys,

So the Paloma Gas Geyser is Installed,

Solar Geyser feeds the Gas Geyser,

I set the Temp on the Gas Geyser to 50 Degrees, I will give an update again in the next month or 2 regarding Gas consumption.

 

Only major difference i noticed is the pressure is slightly lower now since the electric geyser is uninstalled,

Any suggestions to get the pressure up?

 

As for my Electricity Consumption, my usage dropped from 70kw to 30kw per day.

My Solar System Covers around 20kw to 25kw

 

I have a similar set up. I have a 150L electric geyser with 1500w Geyserwise PTC element, controlled by CBI Astute smart controller to power ON at 08:00 and off at 16:00 everyday. The paloma 26L/m gas water heater is in series with the 150L geyser and only powers ON to boost the water temperature from the Electric geyser if the water is cold. I have it set to 50degcels too and a month later, my 48kg gas bottle feels like it has never been used. I have two gas bottles connected to this and a two burner gas hob. 

I have insulated all my hot water pipes and still to get a geyser blanket for the 150L geyser. 

The weight of the spare bottle feels the same as the one that is in use. Cooking and water heating, still monitoring to see how long it will last 

On 2021/12/14 at 6:28 PM, hoohloc said:

The weight of the spare bottle feels the same as the one that is in use. Cooking and water heating, still monitoring to see how long it will last 

Any updates on usage?

7 hours ago, Megesh said:

Any updates on usage?

I'm afraid I have the not so good news but the geyser is not to be blamed. Had to refile the gas last week, so we can say in winter plus loadshedding, we used 48kg of gas in two and half months. I need to get four (400kw) extra panels to increase solar production in winter. I have not been using solar to power the geyser and water heating has been purely from gas. A lot can be done to improve the consumption but the wife and kids don't want to hear any of that...😂

7 hours ago, Megesh said:

Any updates on usage?

The first bottle lasted just over 6 months, second one lasted only 2 months and two weeks

2 hours ago, hoohloc said:

The first bottle lasted just over 6 months, second one lasted only 2 months and two weeks

Thanks for the info. Just a point. Is it not unsafe to have the bottles free standing where they can fall over? Is there not a regulation stating for safety they should be housed in a cage or at least secured?

33 minutes ago, Scorp007 said:

Thanks for the info. Just a point. Is it not unsafe to have the bottles free standing where they can fall over? Is there not a regulation stating for safety they should be housed in a cage or at least secured?

Nope, they are not free standing, they are held/secured firmly by a chain on top. The only way that they could fall is when someone intentionally pull them with a force or an aim to get them to fall. In that case,evenwhen placed in a cage, they can break into the cage and throw them out.... 😂

 Accidentally!  not a chance of them falling. even with my naughty kids, they couldn't get them off the wall when we were testing. 

9 hours ago, hoohloc said:

I'm afraid I have the not so good news but the geyser is not to be blamed. Had to refile the gas last week, so we can say in winter plus loadshedding, we used 48kg of gas in two and half months. I need to get four (400kw) extra panels to increase solar production in winter. I have not been using solar to power the geyser and water heating has been purely from gas. A lot can be done to improve the consumption but the wife and kids don't want to hear any of that...😂

Thanks for the feedback. What is the plan once you have more panels added?

14 hours ago, Megesh said:

Thanks for the feedback. What is the plan once you have more panels added?

The extra four panels will help heat up my geyser in winter, I have a 1.5Kw geyserwise PTC element fitted on my geyser to heat the water during the day and use gas to boost the hot water in the early hours of the next day. I found that in winter, I don't get to heat up the water the whole day and still have my batteries at 100% SoC in the late afternoon, so we end up using more gas to heat up the water from cold instead of just boosting the already warm water to 50deg cels. And to be fair, the 48Kg gas bottle was not only used up by the geyser, we used the gas hob more often because of loadshedding and to avoid using the batteries for cooking, every time they are below 66% SoC. 

The extra panels will be more useful in winter. On other seasons, my plan works perfect and the 48kg last for 6 months. That consumption can also be improved with slight behavior change.