Another home Solar question

[123rover50]

We have had a Solar water heater on the roof for 17 years now. It sprung a leak a year or so back in the tank but the dealers want to replace the whole system. Cost $4,800 with rebate.
Now our Solar power system makes around 1265 KWH per quarter which we get 7 cents per KWH for.
We use 1067 KWH in the same quarter paying 24 cents per KWH.
I was thinking it may be better to get an electric water heater instead of the Solar, to make better use of the power we generate.
Have the water heater so its only on during the day.
I have not priced it yet but it must be a lot less than the 5 grand for solar.
Is this sound thinking or is dementia getting to me?

Keith

[Vern]

I would be either looking at a better brand of solar hotwater service, like apricus. Which you can leave turned off for most of the year they work that well.
Or if you decide to go for an electric storage tank, look at a product called 'power diverter' (there are many other brands, this is just one that i have used) which diverts excess solar not being used at the time and directs it to the hot water power circuit.
That setup with a storage hot water tank would be in excess of $2000 though

[NavyDiver]

We have had a Solar water heater on the roof for 17 years now. It sprung a leak a year or so back in the tank but the dealers want to replace the whole system. Cost $4,800 with rebate.
Now our Solar power system makes around 1265 KWH per quarter which we get 7 cents per KWH for.
We use 1067 KWH in the same quarter paying 24 cents per KWH.
I was thinking it may be better to get an electric water heater instead of the Solar, to make better use of the power we generate.
Have the water heater so its only on during the day.
I have not priced it yet but it must be a lot less than the 5 grand for solar.
Is this sound thinking or is dementia getting to me?

Keith
Free hot water via your Solar PV via a heat pump?

I had a solar hot water on the house I rented for 12 months while renovating and hate it. It was the band another person mentioned. Evacuated Tube hot water are better but still use grid power to top up and are very inefficient i.m.o. once moving to grid which with my crew was sadly a very expensive discovery. Evacuated Tube hot water might work for you it was clearly not enough for 5 of us.
Heat pumps I have now work for both heating and hot water. The solar PV is covering well over 90% of the heating and hot water to date. That said I wonder if a repair of your current system might be the cheapest option.

Burning question: Dementia and what you can do to cut your risk - Health - ABC News (http://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2017-05-03/dementia-and-what-you-can-do-to-cut-your-risk/8490676) might be of interest re dementia

[Vern]

Free hot water via your Solar PV via a heat pump?

I had a solar hot water on the house I rented for 12 months while renovating and hate it. It was the band another person mentioned. Evacuated Tube hot water are better but still use grid power to top up and are very inefficient i.m.o. once moving to grid which with my crew was sadly a very expensive discovery. Evacuated Tube hot water might work for you it was clearly not enough for 5 of us.
Heat pumps I have now work for both heating and hot water. The solar PV is covering well over 90% of the heating and hot water to date. That said I wonder if a repair of your current system might be the cheapest option.

Burning question: Dementia and what you can do to cut your risk - Health - ABC News (http://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2017-05-03/dementia-and-what-you-can-do-to-cut-your-risk/8490676) might be of interest re dementia


Ahhh the one the other person mentioned, which i assumed was me, apricus, is evacuated tube.
We have a solarhart one in the house we are currently renting (between houses), and it works but is way under sized for our family of 4.
I have installed hundreds of hot water services in my time, from electric storage, heat pump, solar roof tank storage, and the evacuated tube is by far the best, not enough hot water, then i would suggest it was under sized.
I will only be using an evac tube system on our next house as we plan to go off grid and this will be the most efficient way to heat water for where we live.

[NavyDiver]

Ahhh the one the other person mentioned, which i assumed was me, apricus, is evacuated tube.
We have a solarhart one in the house we are currently renting (between houses), and it works but is way under sized for our family of 4.
I have installed hundreds of hot water services in my time, from electric storage, heat pump, solar roof tank storage, and the evacuated tube is by far the best, not enough hot water, then i would suggest it was under sized.
I will only be using an evac tube system on our next house as we plan to go off grid and this will be the most efficient way to heat water for where we live.
[thumbsupbig]
the one next door which did not work for my crew was installed for 2 elderly and very conservative people who did not complain about the Electric booster so your correct it was massively undersized for the kids who locked the doors. I had resorted to shutting the water off at the mains a few times[bigwhistle]. Three people renting the house now have had few big power bills already sadly for them.

I had a very old solarhart hot water in Perth. It never seemed to have any issues.

Whats your experience with Heat pumps? I have five (sanden) which have been working very well and almost for free in running costs due to the PV.

[Vern]

Guessing the landlord put a small system on. We had installed a couple if hundred systems in gippsland victoria, the off peak was only switched on for about 4 months of the year.
For a family if 5 i would have used a 400L tank, and minimum 30 tube manifold of 2 x 22 tube manifolds.
Heatpumps.
Yes installed a few, did a fair few rheem jobs, to have every single one fail.
Have done a couple of sanden ones and they seemed like a good unit, have no real feedback.
Had done a lot of quantum units and never had an issue, had one at our last house, still going after 8 years.
Dux (duds) everyone failed.

My only issue with heatpumps is to many moving parts and the longevity of them.

Apricus, 1 x 40watt pump.

Flat panel solar hotwater were always trouble with frosts cracking fittings.

[NavyDiver]

Guessing the landlord put a small system on. We had installed a couple if hundred systems in gippsland victoria, the off peak was only switched on for about 4 months of the year.
For a family if 5 i would have used a 400L tank, and minimum 30 tube manifold of 2 x 22 tube manifolds.
Heatpumps.
Yes installed a few, did a fair few rheem jobs, to have every single one fail.
Have done a couple of sanden ones and they seemed like a good unit, have no real feedback.
Had done a lot of quantum units and never had an issue, had one at our last house, still going after 8 years.
Dux (duds) everyone failed.

My only issue with heatpumps is to many moving parts and the longevity of them.

Apricus, 1 x 40watt pump.

Flat panel solar hotwater were always trouble with frosts cracking fittings.

Cheers. I had read that about the brands you mentioned. Sanden are now not covering use for hydronic heating. I agree with simplicity meaning less failure. That said the run time of the heat pumps is significantly less than 8 AC compressor units I have for heating and cooling at work. I am getting 10 year + on average for my work AC units which are run 18 hours a day.

I put 2 315 litre tanks in at home and even with showers and heating the outdoor units seem to be running at about 5-10mins per hour.

[Tombie]

My system makes around 2,200kwh per quarter and $0.50c rebate..

I'll stick with my $65.00 Gas Bill for heating and cooking I think [emoji6]

[123rover50]

The system I am replacing is a Solahart but the frost model that had a glycol solution for heat transfer. Its this glycol part that sprung a leak in the tank a couple of years ago so I have just been topping it up with water once a week or so and it keeps working. I was wrongly advised as we dont get frosts here.
Its done well for 17 yrs and might still keep going but I am getting a bit tired of getting on the roof to top up the system.
I got on the Apricus website and asked for a quote but they have not got back yet. Perhaps dont do out here in Qld.
Not sure on heat pumps, need to find out more. There is only two of us and I thought a small electric water heater might utilise our solar PV better.

Keith

[DiscoMick]

I'm also wondering about heat pump vs. a small electric heater for our studio we are creating in the former garage at Maleny. I assume the heat pump would use less power, but the consumption would be low. Does that sound right?

[Vern]

We had a guest quarters at our old place which we just put an lpg gas instantaneous on, a bottle lasted a long time.

[123rover50]

We run an LPG cooktop so that my be worth looking into as well.
K

[bee utey]

When we bought our home it had instant LPG hot water, very expensive to run. I managed to purchase a nearly new Quantum heat pump HWS for about 1/3 of the new price. This runs off a normal power point with a time clock so I can dial in the most economical time to run it. Being noisy it isn't allowed to run after 10pm. It uses around 3kWh a day to heat the water in winter.

In summer we have a set of flat plate collectors that are shaded in winter (we have lots of surrounding trees) and a small solar panel fitted just above the collectors runs a 12V circulating pump. During the day if it's sunny enough the water temp rises above thermostat temperature in the tank so it doesn't run the heat pump at all. A cheap 12V temperature controller switches off the circulating pump at a temperature that's safe for the tank, around 65C. It only comes into play a few days each summer when the day reaches 40C or more for 2-3 days in a row.

The Quantum heat pump system has given us grief only once. The compressor stopped working and it tripped the thermo overload switch on the compressor. Repair costs looked to be way in excess of what we paid for it. So I repeatedly switched it on, waited for it to cut in, then ran over to it and belaboured the compressor casing with a 2lb lump hammer. Eventually the compressor cleared whatever was jamming it and it hasn't given a single problem since.

In the future I'd like to replace the flat plate collectors with evacuated tubes but I suspect they'll take a long time to pay for themselves, seeing how little the heat pump costs to run (around $250 a year).

[NavyDiver]

Heatpumps......


Hi Vern

Just noticed another brand of heat pumps on the place I got mine from. Product Index – Welcome to Tivok Australia (http://2016.tivok.com.au/products/#heat-pumps)

Interested to see the have an evac tube as well. I was told new bigger units were coming but these are the first I have seen of this size. Thought you might be interested to look at them. The three phase options, pool and spa heaters and multiple sizing make them look interesting for my hydronic heating and hot water use.
I might be interested in 10 years of so when my current ones need replacing.