discobay

My home uses off-peak electricity to heat up a tank of hot water. The tank is 140 litres in size which concerns me as maybe too small for my family. This coupled with the fact that electricity is expensive and that you can't beat instantaneous hot water systems for practicality. We don't have natural gas in our street so I LPG or solar seems the way to go. Solar would not be able to provide instantaneous hot water in the cooler months. Can I get advice on going LPG for hot water heating?

Rossi

You need to be looking at a combined storage system Solar/LPG.....even in winter the lpg is there just to boost the temperature to what you need
How many in your family ?
Check out the Rinnai or Bosch sites and don't forget to use a licensed plumber for the installation

discobay

So LPG does not provide instantaneous hot water?

Siren & Brian

It does but I would think the cost of bottle LPG to be more expensive than electric instant

bridie

LPG is incredibly expensive, it costs us $100+ per bottle, they said the previous owners were getting through two bottles every 2 months!!!!!

So we are in a similar situation. Currently we have an instantaneous LPG boiler, we are going to get a quote for installing a solahart solar hot water heater on our roof with the current boiler as our gas booster, that way it'll be free in summer and will only cost a small amount during the darkest days of winter.

We had solar at our other place (electric boosted) and it cost very little to run as even a small amount of sun coming through clouds was enough to heat the water. It was an Edwards though, the element burnt out just before we moved (bearing in mind we'd only lived in the house since January 08 and used the booster a few times in winter!) so would go Solahart next time as they have a longer warranty.

HTH

quoll

We have solar and though it isnt the "instant" like the little water heaters that you get that heat as the water passes through them, we have never had a problem with running out of hot water even with two teenagers in the house. It doesnt take that much sun to get the water hot and on the days where it is overcast then the booster does the job - we have the booster set on automatic for an hour a day but it obviously doesnt boost if the temperature is already high enough. I think we have only manual boosted about 10 times in the last 5 years (I did do it last week!). We have had solar for over 25 years and did need to replace it about 5 years ago but solar technology had advanced so much in that time it wasnt surprising.

Gems

Our last house had solar panel on the roof for hotwater (Think it was solarheart).
It worked great and we have 4 kids, plenty of water.

Im def getting solar hot water when I buy.

Gems

discobay

Some great advice here. So let me get this right, contrary to what I have been told electricity is not as expensive as LPG - even during peak hours. Solarheart/Solahart is the recommended solar hot water heating system and heats a tank of water. This system needs to be supplemented by an electric booster system for when the tank runs empty.
Question - do electric instantaneous hot water systems exist?

The Bloke

It is. My mother has recently converted back to an electric hot water system after years of having gas because of the cost, local supply and having to contistantly keep re-lighting it if the pilotlight goes out-not easy at 78.

The Bloke

Since coldwater replaces used hot water in all systems, nothing is totally instantaneous. Gas at well over $100 per 100lt cylinder lasts on continuous use about a month or so. Our average electricity bill is only less than $300 per quarter-all up. Solar hotwater systems are so expensive, even after government rebates, so not many people find it cost effective, with any saving returns taking on average nearly a decade to breakeven. I saw in the paper the other day that a German company has won the government contract to supply 1000 solar systems at a cost of $165, but the drawback is that is the houses are decided by ballot, and the deadline for applications has apparently past,Also the roof must be able to carry the weight of the tank that is normally retrofitted.

discobay

Instantaneous hot water systems that I am used to don't use a tank but heat fresh water as it enters the home. Do these exist here?

The Bloke

I suppose you could try Rinnai systems, which is about the closest to what you want, but they don't come cheap.

http://www.rinnai.com.au/hotwater/ho...?whs=home&pg=0

mulben

This is the Federal Govt. link for rebates:
http://www.environment.gov.au/settle...solarhotwater/

there are also Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) on top of the rebate
also various utilities are offering a no cash upfront option, you just pay
them back the same as your present quarterly bill

Its best to look at surrounding houses if they are not present you may be in a
fast frost area which is murder on solar (ie southern NSW)

bridie

when we built we bought a solar hot water system - over $3,500 and we got back about $300!!!

It's annoying as you'd think they'd want to encourage people to have solar since it's saving energy, especiall with all this nonsense being spouted about carbon trading.

I know they advertise huge rebates but in actual fact a lot of them are only available if you're replacing an electric hot water system, and you have to choose gas boosted.

discobay

Shame as I was thinking along the lines of solar with electric boosting. Anyway, I have requested for brochures from one firm and a visit from another.