Thread: Household solar

What I would like to do is put on solar water. The panels are super efficient nowdays. A mate has one and he turns off his electric hot water system for nine or ten months of the year.

Originally Posted by rovercare

Interest free.....you have simply prepaid the interest in your purchase price

In my case, my interest free loan was a govt. green loan (no longer available).

PM me and I will give you a call if you want, I have started installing them for a living, I'm a qualified Designer and installer. I can either write a bucket load or talk which is easier. But if anyone is interested I can go over all of it either here or in another post about it all.


cheers


Blythe

I'm the same as you Blythe, probably done about 300+ installs, from 1.5kw to 100kw, on, off grid, and fixed a lot of very rough dodgey jobs as well, very very over it, and plan to get out of it in the future. But if was to do it for myself again, I'd be adding batteries and going off grid with an AC coupled system, or battery back up:-)

Originally Posted by Mick_Marsh

What I would like to do is put on solar water. The panels are super efficient nowdays. A mate has one and he turns off his electric hot water system for nine or ten months of the year.

Apricus evacuated tubes are the good units, they work really well, but generally a 10 year payback....unless you incorporate the costs of a replacement ground mount which is $1200ish usually, take 3 ish years off paypack which is good

I still have ground mount, waiting for a unit that is stand alone and uses PV to power your hot water...as I'm on feed in tariff and so are a lot of others, you can use Immersun units, they a pricey though $880 inc at cost last time.

The system that appears good is Hot PV from a mob in NZ, although I've not tried it

Also Wattson have immersion control units, but only in the UK at present.

Originally Posted by austastar

Hi,
Yep, the feed-in tariff is one reason why I bought in now, the other is that while now I use wood for heat/cooking/hot-water, I imagine at some stage at around age 75, chopping firewood will lose most of its fun factor.

When that time comes, I plan to turn on the element in the hot water cylinder, possibly triggered by a timer so it can suck on solar power, and save cutting wood when I can get out of it. When the feed-in tariff goes below purchase price, I will use as much solar power as I can.

My last bill for 91 days averaged 7.9 Kw per day, so we don't use a lot of power.

cheers

Could be like my old man, he is nearly 64, he must have 150-200m of cut and split firewood, his theory is to cut more than enough to see him out

A solar salesman took one look at our power bill and suggested that as farmers we probably have better things to spend the money on. Apparently we have a very cheap off-peak rate which when combined with our usage and the access/meter reading charges makes it barely worthwhile installing solar panels. I wasn't keen anyway, just thought it prudent to check.

I gladly got out of chopping firewood 15 years ago in favor of electric cooking and off-peak water heating. Chopping and splitting firewood was never my idea of fun, not wiinter nor summer nor anywhere between.

Re Blitz an Vern's comments above, it could be wise speaking to them.

There are hundreds (literally) of pages about dodgy solar installations on Whirlpool Dodgy solar installs - what not to do - Solar - Green tech - Whirlpool Forums

The thread is so long it's had to be run in multiple parts. Some of the installs are positively dangerous, others are simply poorly done or positioned.

The company I bought from, Beyond Building Energy, went bust a few months after so there will be no warranty on mine should it fail. The install has some issues and would not meet install requirements now.

Beyond appear to have resumed operations under a new name in the same street on the Gold Coast according to a thread on Whirlpool. Beyond building phoenix - Solar - Green tech - Whirlpool Forums