Solutions for loadshedding

[Karman de Lange]

I absolutely HATE those wall panel heaters. The only way they work as advertised is if you leave them on the entire day and never ever let a drop of cold air into that room.

Biggest scam under ever.

 

We loved the wall panel heaters...  we used to put them under the desks in the office. very targeted heat and worked a charm .. now we just close the office door and switch aircon on ;-)

 

otherwise they work well for growing plants on in winter, just add thermostat.  they don't seem to have issue getting wet and dirt is not a problem either.

 

but for heating a room .. pointless.

[Karman de Lange]

 

 

Don't let this put you off the coil in the bricks, I would love to hear how this works for you.

 

Would love to try it... .. but ja.. covid and $$....

[Vetplant]

Heads-up from a friend who's wife works at ESKOM.

Diesel Generators are already running, it just means that there is no way they will be able to do the peak this evening.

ie. Loadshedding incoming.

[TNT1]

2 minutes ago, Vetplant said:

Heads-up from a friend who's wife works at ESKOM.

Diesel Generators are already running, it just means that there is no way they will be able to do the peak this evening.

ie. Loadshedding incoming.

Especially with how cold it is and the likelihood of the muppets to crank up the electric heaters this evening.

[Karman de Lange]

/me walking to heater and geyser and setting it to max

 

 

[Vetplant]

21 minutes ago, Karman de Lange said:

/me walking to heater and geyser and setting it to max

 

 

/me, changing the settings on the inverter to charge the batteries right now from Grid Power as well, instead of waiting for them to charge with the sun for the rest of the day...

[Rocket-Boy]

1 hour ago, TNT1 said:

Especially with how cold it is and the likelihood of the muppets to crank up the electric heaters this evening.

In the locations where you get free illegal electricity its pretty common to leave the stove on to heat the house.

Those kinds of inefficient heating solutions really add to the mess Eskom faces.

[TNT1]

1 minute ago, Rocket-Boy said:

In the locations where you get free illegal electricity its pretty common to leave the stove on to heat the house.

Those kinds of inefficient heating solutions really add to the mess Eskom faces.

They also increase the shack burn rate.

[Vetplant]

Stage 2 from 16h00 today.

At least my source has proven himself trustworthy, once again. 

 

Edited May 31, 2021 by Vetplant

[ChrisF]

On 2/20/2020 at 12:36 PM, Eddy Gordo said:

Off grid and grid tied is very expensive.

I have opted for separate lights which run off a battery. I want to ad a solar panel to this, and run my fish tanks. The fridge and freezer I am considering a UPS. I think thats around 10k for the ups.

Solar panel would probably cost around 2k or more depending how much batteries I am gonna run. Solar wiring is around R350 for 20m. I reckon I am in a ball park number of 15 to 20k. I wont incorporate into the grid with the lights. My idea is basic lights for the house. Should we have visitors or a family gathering then we can use eskom lighting. I am happy to leave the fridge, freezer, tv and computer on eskom as well. I have a laptop and wifey has a tablet. We can charge these in our cars or off the battery pack I have for the lights. It is a gel something battery. Been going for a couple of years now. 

We went this route, 6 years ago.

 

Initial planning was purely for emergency lighting .... ended up installing 12V lightings throughout.

 

100W panel charge a 105A.h deep cycle battery.

 

We now only use the bathroom light to activate the extract fan.  

 

I later added a car radio to this .... light, sound and you dont even care about a load shed.

 

I use this 12V system to charge the cycling computers, bike lights, phones, GoPro batteries, etc

 

Next step was a gas stove.

 

Yet another step was a solar geyser.  Here we opted for the Geyserwise dual element system.  PV panels heat the water via DC element.  The Geyserwise timer allows you to set minimum temperatures for specific times, so you know you will have a hot shower before work.

 

I logged the Eskom energy to the geyser on this system for a year.  It WORKS !!  Payback was only 3 years.

 

Pool pump is a Grundfoss pump, which can run off PV or Eskom.  It senses the input and does the rest internally.  Nice system, but at 20k I doubt it will reach pay back.

 

So we loose the following during a loadshed:

. Fridge

. Washing machine

. Tv, desktop, wifi ...

. Garage door opener

 

I then got a UPS for the tv, desktop, wifi ... came in VERY handy during lockdown !!

 

 

Been contemplating the next step for a while .... cost vs payback just does not add up .... a decent inverter on the lights battery can operate the garage door, which I needed once in 12 years to get out, parked outside a few times though.

 

This inverter could then be used to charge the ebike batteries ... ????

 

Clearly this was a long term project.  Looking back over about 6 years of this system it works very well for us, for very minimal cost.

[ChrisF]

On 3/2/2020 at 2:19 PM, madbradd said:

 

I was thinking of something like this and putting LED light strips behind curtain rails (or similar) with a local switch behind the curtain.

 

I replaced the old incandescent 3x-spotlights, with these lights using 2x energy efficient bulbs.

Then proceeded to wire the LED strip "into" the unit.  I dont like the look of open LED strips.  (okay, since then you can get some nice units to hide the LED strips)

 

 

Starring into the light you will notice it is "different" to standard bulbs.  But as I sit and type this post, the light "spread" and light levels in the room is the same as it would be with the eskom lights.

 

 

 

The lights are controlled via a four-button alarm remote system.  In this pic I am programming the remotes for the four light zones of the house.  Another four-button system is used in the braai and garage.

The remotes are velcroed above the eskom light switches.  This is the only visual sign in the house.

 

Off course the remotes makes "two-way switching" a breeze.

 

While I was playing .... I added a motion sensor and built in timer to activate an LED strip in the garage.  So walking to the car in the morning, or putting something in the bin, no need to switch lights on.  AND no way to forget to switch off lights in the garage.

 

 

[The Ouzo]

13 hours ago, ChrisF said:

 

I replaced the old incandescent 3x-spotlights, with these lights using 2x energy efficient bulbs.

Then proceeded to wire the LED strip "into" the unit.  I dont like the look of open LED strips.  (okay, since then you can get some nice units to hide the LED strips)

 

 

Starring into the light you will notice it is "different" to standard bulbs.  But as I sit and type this post, the light "spread" and light levels in the room is the same as it would be with the eskom lights.

 

 

 

The lights are controlled via a four-button alarm remote system.  In this pic I am programming the remotes for the four light zones of the house.  Another four-button system is used in the braai and garage.

The remotes are velcroed above the eskom light switches.  This is the only visual sign in the house.

 

Off course the remotes makes "two-way switching" a breeze.

 

While I was playing .... I added a motion sensor and built in timer to activate an LED strip in the garage.  So walking to the car in the morning, or putting something in the bin, no need to switch lights on.  AND no way to forget to switch off lights in the garage.

 

 

clever idea with the LED strip

[The Ouzo]

I guess this is a good place to pose the question.

 

In my kitchen I have regular florescent tube light on the ceiling, how easy is it to convert this to using LED tubes ? 

[Karman de Lange]

22 minutes ago, ouzo said:

I guess this is a good place to pose the question.

 

In my kitchen I have regular florescent tube light on the ceiling, how easy is it to convert this to using LED tubes ? 

Buy LED tube and remove the ballast .. about 5 min job.  lots of info on youtbe etc.

 

Ballast Removal LEDs - YouTube  

(16) How To Convert Fluorescent Fixture to LED - YouTube

Edited June 2, 2021 by Karman de Lange
add youtub elinks

[The Ouzo]

Just now, Karman de Lange said:

Buy LED tube and remove the ballast .. about 5 min job.  lots of info on youtbe etc.

thanks.

[ChrisF]

10 hours ago, ouzo said:

I guess this is a good place to pose the question.

 

In my kitchen I have regular florescent tube light on the ceiling, how easy is it to convert this to using LED tubes ? 

Karman is 100% correct in how to switch the old tube system over to the new LED tube system.

 

For BACP-UP purposes I went this route -

 

This was done for "load shedding back-up" .... works so well that we have not used the eskom tubes in 6 years