Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jun 22, 2011 10:11 pm This is my next purchase I have narrowed it down to a gas boosted solar hot water system and have the following storage capacities to choose from: 270lt 325lt 410lt Now, I have no idea what we have at the moment and cant find it written anywhere on the unit so Im completely clueless. All I know is that we use ALOT of hot water (alright, I do. I love my hot showers). Sooo...... how big is your unit? How many people does it service? How long do you think you can have the hot water running for before it gets cold? Thank you! Custom European Cabinets - Melbourne Kitchen Specialist PM for business details as website currently being updated! Our Crazy Owner Builder Journey! Re: How many litres is your hot water system? 2Jun 22, 2011 10:53 pm Hey Bam, We've currently got a 250lt tank which has served us extremely well for over 12 years with a varying number of people living in the house, from a max of 7 down to 3. Have never run out of hot water. For our new build we'll be going with the 270 lt unit to service 3 and half bathrooms and big spa. Hope this helps! Cheers, M Re: How many litres is your hot water system? 3Jun 22, 2011 10:59 pm Hi Bam, pretty sure ours is 250L too. However we have occasionally run out, if I wash my hair and DH wants to have a shower straight after, he sometimes can't have a very long one. At the moment the kids have a bath at the other end of the day, but I don't like to think what will happen when there are 4 of us trying to shower in the morning at the moment though, it isn't very often that we run out and we are finding it fine. I can see us having to upgrade though. "Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions." — Elizabeth Gilbert Living in our new house. Currently scaping the land. Re: How many litres is your hot water system? 4Jun 23, 2011 8:55 am We had a 350 litre electric boosted solar system in our last place - the booster was turned off unless we had alot of rainy days. There were two adults, a teen and two little ones in the house and we never ran out of hot water. ~ trying to build our dream home by the sea ~ Re: How many litres is your hot water system? 5Jun 23, 2011 9:02 am Why not get an endless system to backup your solar? http://www.australianhotwater.com.au/in ... heater.htm Re: How many litres is your hot water system? 6Jun 23, 2011 9:39 am With hot water units, you can usually vary the temp. If you have a smaller tank, you can up the temp a bit and then mix with more cold water. Only issue with this is risk of scalding. Oversized tank will be wasteful of energy if not required, undersized tank will be very irritating and may fail sooner from heavy loading. Instant hot water is very flexible but usually uses more energy. Lots of variables so personal circumstances and preferences come into play and one size fits all does not apply. Re: How many litres is your hot water system? 7Jun 23, 2011 2:32 pm My theory is because you are going with a Solar system to go with a bigger system, because then when it is sunny you can warm up more water and be less likely to need a boost. I have a Electric boosted solar which I think is about 315l. How mine works is it has the collectors on the roof, and tank on the ground, and the element is halfway up the tank, so once it was working correctly (I had problems when it was installed where the installer forgot to connect the rooftop sensor to the tank so the solar water cycled after warming up to heat so it was workign as a electric system not a solar ) the solar heats the water in the whole tank, and when the water is used you get the normal cold stuff in the bottom, hot stuff at the top, and when the temperture at the halfway point gets below the treshold for the element it then kicks in but only heats up the top half, the bottom half is only heated by solar and is so the element should not kick in so much. Which is why the bigger the better because you have more of the heated water below the element to stop it kicking in as you use the water as hopefully you don't use over half the tank and the next day if it is fine you have it all heating up again. Also another trick that the person who fixed our system told us to do which works on our electric boosted, I don't know how the gas boosted works, but it probably won't need it if it heats on demand if the water is too cold. We have our booster off all the time (but have the solar pump going all the time to keep it flowing through the collectors) and when we think we will need hot water because it has been bad weather you turn the booster on at about 3-4pm so it has had all day to at least heat up some, and then turn it off about 2 hours later when it should of heated up. That way you have it for people showers in the evening/morning, but do not have it boosting during the night because you have the element working warming up the water you have used and then the solar doesn't save as much money as it could because half the water is already heated before the sun is up. Surprisingly though out of the 3 times I have put the booster on in the afternoon to boost the water it has not needed it 2 of those times because the element didn't kick in (we were using a climatesmart monitor to see if it kicked in or not, it is also what told us that it was not working properly at the start when we saw how often it was kicking in) and the 1 time it did need it was because it was 3 overcast days in a row, and one of our sons decided a 45 min shower was a good idea which we did not find out about until my wife had a shower and ran out of hot water and we questioned the kids. But I think it would of needed a boost then anyway, he just helped it on the way of running out. Edit:Speeling Mistaks If I was to win Lotto, I would build with a different builder, now to win lotto Re: How many litres is your hot water system? 8Jun 23, 2011 4:07 pm We have electric boosted (mains gas not available), 325L system. We got this one as it cost the same as the smaller tank. Household comprises of two adults. We have had to turn the booster on once so far, we have had the system for seven months. We had to turn it on when we had four days where the temperature didn't get above 15C- being in central Queensland this is fairly unusual even for winter, temps at the moment are back up to 20C+. Re: How many litres is your hot water system? 9Jun 23, 2011 8:28 pm Thank you so much everyone! Its amazing how such a simple thing to answer can give me so much information And thank you RoadkillNZ for your tips, I wasnt aware of most fo what you wrote! Turns out Im faced with another dilemma - only the 270ltr model comes with frost free panels. Is this the point which will determine what I should get? The guy I spoke with basically said he wouldnt consider anything that wasnt frost free... Custom European Cabinets - Melbourne Kitchen Specialist PM for business details as website currently being updated! Our Crazy Owner Builder Journey! Re: How many litres is your hot water system?*frost free pan 10Jun 24, 2011 10:27 pm I know for our system they don't have Frost Free panels, but if you don't live in certain areas there is meant to be a Frost Free valve installed to the panels so the other panels may have that instead. But it may pay to ask the supplier about frost protection. Thanks by the way, you reminded me that I forgot to check about the Frost Free valve when we were getting the system fixed after instalation, so afer recent frosts I should check that it is installed and if not go to a local supplier and get one to fix it before it does damage to the system in the next cold snap as we have already had 4 days of frost this month where we are. If I was to win Lotto, I would build with a different builder, now to win lotto Re: How many litres is your hot water system?*frost free pan 11Jul 01, 2011 12:29 pm no idea sorry, they're not something we need around here the sun master is the solar heating to "warm" the water in the tank the S26 is your hot water system which will heat the water (25 degrees?) so with both turned on you… 2 12298 I want to build a decking to the drawn shape outlined in black. The problem is how close can I build to the gas hot water unit? Will I be able to build around it and be… 0 20219 DIY, Home Maintenance & Repair Hi, I've got a brand new (2nd hand) Bosch Hydropower 16H tankless hot water heater. Since it was installed I have noticed it leaks a lot. I took the cover off and it looks… 0 24140 |