Am considering getting a suntrap 300L solar hot water system. We are redoing kitchen and old cylinder has to go. Have considered gas but for a similar price I’m now considering a suntrap system. Anyone out there have one of these?
I’m in Chch and realise the benefit in the colder months will be minimal.
tygertung,
Feb 4, 4:15am
Should be good in colder months in CHCH anyway as it is often sunny, but cold here.
gabbysnana,
Feb 4, 4:51am
yes, removing ng gas as it is only used for water anyway, looking at solar Hart with boost, then a solar array for electricity, just fathoming out the battery costs requirements etc.
tweake,
Feb 4, 4:54am
a mate has solar hot water.
the suntrap looks to be the evacuated tube hot water system. generally expensive. suntrap web site has some BS so i don't know if thats a good brand to deal with.
the solar is sized to summer. the simple problem is overheating them during summer tho you can dump some heat with the right setup. winter you need a back up, eg wetback or electric.
efficiency doesn't really matter all that much. the more efficient it is the smaller it has to be. solar heaters are usually not big enough to worry about space constraints. bigger issue is drop in performance over the years.
the other way is to use solar power and feed that straight to a hot water element. the bonus with that setup is its a lot easier to control and wiring is much easier than plumbing.
stevo2,
Feb 4, 6:00am
We have a 25 tube Evacuated tube system on our holiday bach. Honestly I dont rate it as value for money. If we go up there in Winter we need to turn on the electric booster. If any more than two of us go there in Spring/ Autumn we need to turn on the booster. The bonus is the water is hot enough for a shower when we get there on a Friday night.
ryanm2,
Feb 4, 6:33am
Yes, maybe we will move cylinder into roof space and tie it directly to a solar array . Can’t decide , power and gas is only going to keep going up in price.
aredwood,
Feb 4, 12:14pm
Don't bother. I have an approx 7 year old evacuated tube system on my house. Most of the tubes have lost their vacuum. System is still partly working, just managing to provide enough hot water for 2 people during the current hot dry weather in Auckland. It previously provided far more hot water.
Get a large cylinder and use night rate electricity to heat it.
And if you haven't already, get an electric car. Far bigger savings due to no more petrol. And Meridian give you cheaper electricity if you own an EV. They are offering me 11.97c/KWh for night rate power. When I bought the evacuated tube system, I was paying around 25c/KWh for power.
loose.unit8,
Feb 4, 8:06pm
Have you considered a hot water heat pump? Similar price to solar but works all year round (albeit at a lessor rate than solar in summer).
Same theory as a air to air heat pump. $1 of electricity in, $3 of (water) heating out.
Consumer magazine had them as the cheapest to run of all the water heating options.
harm_less,
Feb 5, 3:00am
We had a (Kloben) evacuated tube system on our last place which fed into a twin element HWC. Top element connected to grid to heat top 80/250L. Remainder of cylinder was heated by solar which made top element heating unnecessary in summer. incredibly efficient solar but despite this our plumber now recommends PV over solar HW for ROI.
We will install a PV with power diverter system to feed excess generation into our dual element HWC in the near future. Top element grid, bottom element PV. The EECA PV tool calculates a <10 pay back on the installation cost but this will be improved by our charging an EV from the PV. Also expecting government incentives to kick in for PV and/or EVs in the next few years.
Last night I did stumble across the stiebel eltron hw heat pumps , certainly got the mind ticking over . I think we will go grid tie solar in future so unsure at moment .
stevo2,
Feb 5, 6:35am
We have put Heat pump hot water into a few new builds. The clients had done their homework and said they were a good investment.
sachy17,
Feb 6, 6:10am
Get solar for your water. We moved into a new house in mid March 2020. We have a hot water system from Sunshine Solar here in Christchurch. About 6 weeks after moving in we noticed the water was not very warm one day but it was fine the next then a week or two later we had the same problem. We called John at Sunshine and after checking it turned out one of the tradies had not turned the electrical boost on so we had essentially had free hot water for all that time. I had previously been careful with hot water. Now with solar we no longer worry. I wish I had done it years ago.
mutation,
Feb 6, 8:40pm
Ask any solar supplier what the lifespan of the evacuated tubes is, and does their performance drop off over time (ie after 5-6-7 years). Then compare this info with their claimed warranty period. I have a Evac Tube system, and my recommendation would be - get a hot water heat pump.
ryanm2,
Feb 7, 5:36am
I’m pretty sure I’m going to go hot water heat pump , now I must decide which brand. Either the Bosch compress 3000 or the ecospring 300, they look identical so probably the same unit.
mutation,
Aug 20, 2:18pm
Theres many pros and cons but one good thing about HWHP systems is that the amount of hot water that can be heated, is limited only by how many hours there are in a day, and the outside ambient air temp. With a Evac solar system, they only produce a finite amount during daylight hours. If you have a growing or reducing amount of people in the household, the HWHP will heat enough water 'as required', unlike the solar which is a finite amount weather you want it or not. I looked into it a few years back and the Econergy unit was the best performer at the time, and there was local support available (nz made and designed). I would have gone for it, it was 50/50 but in the end the distance between the cylinder and the unit was too long in our house. went evac tube instead regrettably.
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