A couple of weeks ago, Eskom warned us that we were once teetering on the edge of load-shedding (aka “rolling blackouts”) and that we must try to save as much electricity as possible to prevent this. People see this as counter-intuitive coming from the people who generate our electricity and therefore make more money when we use it, but it’s nothing unusual: I was brought up with YEB doing roadshows at our school telling us to use less electricity, so let’s forget the exceptionalism, shall we?
Anyway, it was a reminder to up our power saving and in turn, it reminded me that I never updated you lot on how my Geyserwise installation had worked out.
Geyserwise is a timer that lets you decide when and to what temperature you choose to heat your water for use in the house. This might seem like a bit of a no-brainer for those overseas, but that fact is that most South African households (who have geysers) leave them on 24/7. And it’s a pain to remember to switch it off on your distribution board or to climb into your loft to alter the temperature on the thermostat.
Now, instead of our geyser being on 24/7 (or when I remembered to switch it on/off), it’s on for less than an hour each day. Instead of being set to 65°C, it’s set to 50°C. And wow – what a difference to our electricity bill.
That bill has come down by around 45%, which means that rather than paying for itself in the 3 months I was hoping, the unit started saving us money within 6 weeks. We’ve fiddled with it very slightly – just altering the times a little to suit us better and taking the temperature down a little more – but I cannot fault the unit or its effect.
If you’re reading this and have been considering getting one of these, just do it.
Those contact details again: Leon at Geysol (076 036 0623).
This is not a sponsored post.
Just be careful with your temperature setting. You’re bordering on unsafe (although I’m sure you’re well aware of things like Legionnaires and so forth, your readers might not be). General advice is not to go below 55 degrees as being a safe threshhold. You’ll still save at that level, although you may take a couple more hours to make the money back.
It should be noted that most of your savings are timer related, not temperature related, as I’ve got several case studies showing that if you simply set a timer correctly (about R200 from a place like Builders Warehouse) you can receive similar savings. I haven’t yet gone this route, but it’s certainly something I’m considering seriously in the light of the past and upcoming increases (19% provisionally in Cape Town for 2012/13 – you read it first here on 6000.co.za).
Gary > LOL. Fair point on the microbiology, but it’s a chance I’m willing to take. And yes, 55 would be a safer level, but I’d have to maintain that for up to 8 hrs, which kind of negates the savings.
Thanks for the heads up on the prospective increase. Oh happy day!
Garys comment made me do some research. Legionairres is flippin nasty!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionellosis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_heating
Opinions seem to differ between 54.5 and 60 degree’s being safe though u can give it one solid blast a day over 60 to wipe out any bacteria and then keep it to 54.5 or less for the rest of the time
Conversely over 60 degree temps can also be a breeding ground for other bacteria.
Cant win can we 🙂
Liam > Indeed. Horrible, but thankfully very, very rare – I’ve only ever seen about 3 cases in 20-odd years of diagnostic microbiology – hence my risky behaviour when it comes to heating my water.