For many years Rowan has been looking into alternate ways to generate power, including wind and solar generation. So when we brought our new home in West Harbour, it was time to look at implementing some of these solutions.
The first look at Grid Connected solar was that it was going to be a bit too expensive, and we thought we would install it later. So the next best thing was to look into Solar Hot Water Systems. Rowan and I emailed a few companies, some of which didn't even bother responding, others were outside Auckland so weren't really viable.
In the end the one that rang us back with the best sales pitch won our contract... Well Adrian did also let us know that there was a government subsidy in place and that it was going to end in a couple of weeks. That did get us moving and Adrian did have a pretty good sales pitch, although he wasn't pushy which was perfect. So Solar Group Limited was who we ended up going with.
Of course we did have to make things a little (well alot) complicated, we had a low pressure system and we didn't want to get a new hot water cylinder. Adrian did warn us, he said it should work, but it may not.
Keep in mind that at this particular time we had tenants in the house, while they were getting a good deal on the rent as it was only a short tenancy, they were to soon pay for this with the hot water cylinder, read on further and you'll understand why.
The team at Solar Group came in and installed the system, they used our current hot water cylinder and had the system up and running. Unfortunately this is where the problems started, because the water was low pressure and the hot water cylinder was not being moved, the pressure dropped significantly. Basically the hot water was dripping out of the tap. This basically meant that the tenants couldn't have a shower!!!! Adrian was great, although he was probably getting frustrated with us. He got the plumber in and they had a good look around fixed this, tweaked that. Got it going good for a bit and then it would go down again. Something to do with filters and other bits and pieces. Essentially the best solution to the whole problem was to replace the hot water cylinder with a mains pressure one. And this is exactly what we did. All of a sudden the house had amazing pressure again, the perfect solution.
So what did we end up getting installed...
Hot Water Cylinder: GreenGlo 180D
If you are looking for Solar Hot Water or Grid connected Solar (see other post) then I definitely recommend Adrian @ Solar Group Limited 09 477 2999.
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