Titanium Geyser Element: Solution To Reduce Your Hot Water Consumption By 50%?

[Gregorydee]

As an Energy Efficient Advisor, we have looked at the domestic market and found that 40 - 60% of the total electricity bills are in heating from geysers. We also targeted businesses such as Guesthouses, Backpackers and Hostels and realised that on average, hot water consumption was accountable for more than 60% of the total power bill!

After identifying the needs in both the domestic and business markets, our company developed a Titanium Element with patented technology to reduce hot water consumption by 50%. This new technology utilises Positive Temperature Co-efficient (PTC) ceramic chips as a heat source instead of the conventional resistance-wire heating, which currently is the only type of heating element used in the S.A market. In a nutshell, the Titanium Element will heat up the water in your geyser at the same rate as the resistance-wire element but using 50% less power, hence the 50% saving in costs.

Benefits and Advantages of The Titanium Element (Eco-element):

*It will save you 50% on your monthly geyser consumption
*The titanium element is self-regulating and energy efficient
*Compact design for ease of installation
*Long lifetime expectancy
*Reliable and durable
*5 year guarantee and factory warranty
*5 year maintenance free planWhen moving house, it can easily be removed and re-installed
*No need to ever switch your geyser off to reduce consumption
*Free geyser controller that will limit the amount of run time of your element yet ensuring 24hrs of running hot water
*SANS (SABS) approved and accepted by all major geyser manufacturers

I am currently conducting free power audits on geysers in the Western Cape to residential units, guest houses, hostels, hotels, backpackers and any other businesses who are looking to reduce costs. The audit will show your actual costs vs the savings when installing the Eco-Titanium Element, taking into consideration the already approved 12.39% price increase from Eskom. Bearing in mind, that Municipalities will also place a surcharge when dispensing to consumers. The price hike could be in the region of 16% year on year for the next 5 years.

If you would like to take advantage of the free audit for your home or business, please feel free to reply to this post or you may contact me on my mobile on 27 793202632.

[AndyD]

As an Energy Efficient Advisor,

What's the name of your company please? From your Google+ account I'm assuming it's Thomo Plumbing and / or EcoDirect maybe????

our company developed a Titanium Element with patented technology

After Googling the phone number you've given I found your post on your Google+ account. It appears you've taken a product that wasn't, as you claim, developed by you and you've set up to missell it as an energy saving device.

The problem you have is the laws of physics which categorically state (and they refuse to negotiate on this) that to raise a volume of water by a certain temperature requires a given amount of heat input which, in turn, requires a given amount of electrical energy to produce it. An normal element submersed into the water is 100% efficient at converting electrical energy into heat energy. Here's a high school physics explanation.

This new technology utilises Positive Temperature Co-efficient (PTC) ceramic chips as a heat source instead of the conventional resistance-wire heating,

Not new technology, it's been around and widely used fer decades. The heating efficiency of a PTC heater is identical to the efficiency of a normal element, the difference with PTC heaters is that they self-limit their temperature so they can be used without thermostats and safety limit devices in the correct applications and they're often use to heat temperature sensitive materials that would be damaged by the unregulated surface temperatures of a standard element.

In a nutshell, the Titanium Element will heat up the water in your geyser at the same rate as the resistance-wire element but using 50% less power, hence the 50% saving in costs.

Simply not true, please show real evidence.

[IanF]

Would an induction geyser use less power? http://greenyourhome.co.za/saving-el...uction-geysers
Ok I trained as an accountant so could be wrong.

[AndyD]

Induction heating has some advantages, mainly that losses are lower especially in stoves because using induction to transfer the heat causes only the base of the pot to get hot and not the surrounding air whereas with a gas or normal electric hob a lot of heat is lost to the surrounding surfaces and air.

With a geyser the element is submerged in the water it's heating so there's almost no transfer losses, all the heat produced within the element has nowhere else to go except into the surrounding water. In this case induction heating wouldn't have any advantages, in fact induction heaters would have slightly higher losses because the large coils that transmit the energy to the conductive material inside the geyser make a small amount of heat that doesn't end up heating the water. As with the PTC heaters discussed in this thread, it doesn't matter how you make the heat from the electrical energy being supplied, you're always going to get the same amount of heat from the same quantity of electricity.

The old fashioned element type geyser is actually nearly 100% efficient at converting electricity into heat and putting that heat into the water. The only inefficiency it has is the heat losses to the surroundings through the insulation from the hot water it holds but these are storage losses, not conversion losses during the heating process.

If you want a cheaper way of heating water using just electricity then a heat-pump would be your weapon of choice. The big difference is that a heat pump relocates heat from the surroundings in one area to the surroundings in another area so it's not actually converting the electricity into heat as such, it's using the electrical energy to move heat that's already existing from one place to another where it's more useful.

[Dave A]

I took the liberty of moving part of a conversation in the moderators area into this thread as I believe it is helpful to the general public to know these things.

[Justloadit]

There is an inefficiency that creeps in over time with resistance heater elements in geysers. If you have water with a high calcium or mineral content, the deposit of this material on the heater surface then creates an insulation between the heating element and the water, thus reducing the heat transfer. This means that it takes a longer time to heat your water, increasing the electricity bill. When the build up starts, then the deposit of more minerals on the heater is accelerated due to the insulation being created, and the heater fails, as invariably a hot spot occurs which causes the element at that point to increase in temperature as it is no longer transferred to the water.

[Dave A]

There is an inefficiency that creeps in over time with resistance heater elements in geysers. If you have water with a high calcium or mineral content, the deposit of this material on the heater surface then creates an insulation between the heating element and the water, thus reducing the heat transfer. This means that it takes a longer time to heat your water, increasing the electricity bill.

There is a fundamental law of physics in play though - so where is the "energy loss" going? Getting bound up in potential chemical energy?
(Which even then, I wouldn't have thought would add up to overly much, frankly).

[AndyD]

A coating of scale (calcium carbonate) would obstruct the transfer of heat to the water in varying degrees depending on it's thickness and structure and in doing so it would cause the tube of the element to become hotter. With a lot of calcium the outcome would be a shorter element lifespan and eventual catastrophic failure when the tube surface temperature becomes hot enough to rupture and expose the internal mica insulation to water ingress. The issue would be that if there was that much calcium in the water it would also block the pipes and taps etc so there would be little, if any mileage in just fitting a calcium resistant element. You'd need to treat the calcium with a softener or some other hard water treatment system.

Other effects of calcium build-up could be something I'll refer to as 'run-on' which is where there's heat contained in the element itself and in the surrounding calcium that hasn't yet been transferred to the water so when the thermostat switches off you might see the water temperature still continue to rise over the following minutes whilst the temperature gradient levels off even though the element isn't producing new heat at that time. With 150 or 200 litre volume of water, I wouldn't expect this run-on to be very pronounced unless there was a substantial quantity of calcium and I've never heard of it being a real-life issue with a geyser or even with any kind of industrial heating system.

Calcium build-up wouldn't decrease the efficiency of the geyser unless it was causing heat to be dissipated somewhere other than the water. If there was a substantial quantity, like enough to physically bridge between the element and the tank and this caused the tank itself to become hotter than the water than maybe it could cause marginally higher losses through the insulation. Firstly if there's that much scale in the system it's going to be an issue regardless of the type of heater or element being used and secondly I wouldn't imagine these extra losses, should they ever occur in real life, would be very significant and certainly nowhere even close to the efficiency improvements being touted in the sales bumf.

[Justloadit]

Talking about elements and geysers

I have just finished off developing a system, in which you do not have to remove the geyser element. Connecting PV panels directly to any type of load with out an intelligent controller is extremely inefficient. PV panels are what we call constant current supplies, in other words, irrespective of the load draw, the panel will supply a constant current value.

An example, if we take a 250W PV panel, which at midday can give you 30V at 8.4Amps totaling 252Watts effectively, and you connect this directly to a flat 12V car battery, then the panel will supply 12V at 8.4A only, totaling 101Watts. You are losing 149Watts. An electronic device, known as an MPPT controller, will match the load to the panel, in other words the controller if designed for a 12V load, will convert the panel power to 12V at 21Amps. Far more power than the conventional method.

Replacing the element in the geyser to 750W 24-48V element will work with an MPPT, however, the currents at 24V and 48V are very high, causing the use of expensive very thick battery cables to ensure that there is no loss in the cables during full load, and also to ensure that the cables do not heat up with the high current. This makes the installation difficult and costly.

Here with my brochure.
Usedasun - Alternative Energy Leaflet.pdf

It may not be cheaper than the vacuum tubes or direct solar heating systems at first glance, but installation of this unit is a couple of hours, and only requires the connection of a few electrical wires, as compared to the direct solar water heaters, which require modification of pipe work and additional plumbing, modification to roof, requirement of a heat exchanger with a specially designed geyser for the application, circulating pumps and controllers, and the additional weight on the roof of the circulating water and reservoir tank.

Ideally suited in the addition of alternative energy to an already built home using an electrical geyser.

Feel free to request distributors price list

[SilverNodashi]

Talking about elements and geysers

I have just finished off developing a system, in which you do not have to remove the geyser element. Connecting PV panels directly to any type of load with out an intelligent controller is extremely inefficient. PV panels are what we call constant current supplies, in other words, irrespective of the load draw, the panel will supply a constant current value.

An example, if we take a 250W PV panel, which at midday can give you 30V at 8.4Amps totaling 252Watts effectively, and you connect this directly to a flat 12V car battery, then the panel will supply 12V at 8.4A only, totaling 101Watts. You are losing 149Watts. An electronic device, known as an MPPT controller, will match the load to the panel, in other words the controller if designed for a 12V load, will convert the panel power to 12V at 21Amps. Far more power than the conventional method.

Replacing the element in the geyser to 750W 24-48V element will work with an MPPT, however, the currents at 24V and 48V are very high, causing the use of expensive very thick battery cables to ensure that there is no loss in the cables during full load, and also to ensure that the cables do not heat up with the high current. This makes the installation difficult and costly.

Here with my brochure.
[ATTACH]6113[/ATTACH]

It may not be cheaper than the vacuum tubes or direct solar heating systems at first glance, but installation of this unit is a couple of hours, and only requires the connection of a few electrical wires, as compared to the direct solar water heaters, which require modification of pipe work and additional plumbing, modification to roof, requirement of a heat exchanger with a specially designed geyser for the application, circulating pumps and controllers, and the additional weight on the roof of the circulating water and reservoir tank.

Ideally suited in the addition of alternative energy to an already built home using an electrical geyser.

Feel free to request distributors price list

I am / was interested in your equipment, but there's no prices on your website?

[Justloadit]

I am / was interested in your equipment, but there's no prices on your website?

Send me your email address and I will get it to you.

[Dave888]

Please let me have some pricing. Thanks.

dave@solarex.co.za

[richardpickering]

I know this is old, but thought that it was worth replying. We have an element that we are about to launch that works specifically with horizontal Kwikot geysers. It delivers 20-45% savings on a standard coil. The inventors of this have done many labs tests. We have done field tests measuring water and power use on the geyser and confirmed results. I know this sound untrue, but the figures speak for themselves.
The issue with the argument about a specific amount of power heating a specific amount of water is that it does not take into account: standing losses and heating inefficiencies inherent in the current element structure.
In 2 test cases we did, both 150 liter geysers, one a house of 2 people using 140l average per day, one a house of 4 people using 245l. The 2 person house used an average of 44 watts per liter, the bigger house used 36, with the standard coil. With the new coil this changed to 35 for the small house and 24 for the larger house. Savings of 20% and 33% respectively.
We are continuing field tests for the rest of this year to ensure that we can be confident of the savings in different situations. What has become very clear is that how you use the water (the draw off profile) and the amount used relative to the size of the geyser does have a significant impact. I am not an engineer. I am surrounded by them and none would believe a word of this. The evidence is clear and they are now gently baffled, but gaining belief.
We will launch early in 2017. We will have many customer testimonials with measured results. Northface will not sell a product that is not tested by us and proven effective.

[AndyD]

Hi Richard, welcome to the forum.

.....The issue with the argument about a specific amount of power heating a specific amount of water is that it does not take into account: standing losses and heating inefficiencies inherent in the current element structure.

It was already covered previously in this thread why a standard geyser element is already very close to being 100% efficient at converting electrical energy into heat energy and putting that heat energy into the water in a geyser. There are no 'heating inefficiencies inherrent in the current element structure'.

Standing losses are, as their name suggests, heat losses through the insulation over time as the hot water is standing. Standing losses of an insulated cylinder/geyser will be identical regardless of the type of element that initially heated the water.

You could, in theory, reduce standing losses by either heating the water to a lower final temperature or even by heating the water slower so the standing temperature is lower for longer but either way that's not about the 'type' of element, it's only about the power of the element being lower. The flip side of reducing the power of the element is that the water takes longer to heat so you're more likely to suffer with cold water during times of high demand.

In 2 test cases we did, both 150 liter geysers, one a house of 2 people using 140l average per day, one a house of 4 people using 245l. The 2 person house used an average of 44 watts per liter, the bigger house used 36, with the standard coil. With the new coil this changed to 35 for the small house and 24 for the larger house. Savings of 20% and 33% respectively.

If you're electrical energy consumption was reduced then either less volume of hot water was produced or the same volume was produced but it was at a lower temperature.

What has become very clear is that how you use the water (the draw off profile) and the amount used relative to the size of the geyser does have a significant impact.

Erm yes, if the 'draw off profile' has an effect on how much hot water is being consumed then yes it would have a significant impact on power consumption but I don't see the link between the 'draw off profile' and the element.

We will launch early in 2017. We will have many customer testimonials with measured results. Northface will not sell a product that is not tested by us and proven effective.

After a quick Google it appears Northface already have it for sale on their website;

Econocoil - efficient water heating

[ATTACH=CONFIG]6587[/ATTACH]

Save 20-40% of your water heating bill simply by changing to this element. Applies only to Kwikot 150l horizontal geysers.

Read more

The Econocoil minimises the heat losses and maximises the heating efficiency of the geyser. It does this by moving the heated part of the element further from the edge of the geyser and using convection to move the hot water to the more insulated part of the geyser.

3 month money back satisfaction guarantee
12 month warranty (extendable to 24 or 36 months)

The perfect time to install Econocoil is when your standard element breaks and needs replacing.

This is a product that allows people who cannot afford R15,000 or more for a solar system, to at least make a real dent in their heating expenses.

A couple of things confusing me here, firstly the claimed savings on the website go as high as 40%. Secondly the way it's claimed it saves energy is by moving the heated part of the element further from the edge of the geyser and using convection to move the hot water to the more insulated part of the geyser

So, by the element being a different shape it's possible to reduce electrical consumption by 40%...??? Bold claims indeed, call me a sceptic but I'd like to see the proof.

[Justloadit]

I am with Andy on this one. An element is actually a resistor, which currently is the most efficient load/heat transfer for electricity, unlike inductive loads causing higher currents to get the amount of energy from the supply to the load.
So moving the element (resistor) around in a metal enclosure with water is not going to make the amount of energy less or more required to heat a litre of water from a specific temperature to another specific temperature.
There are 3 parts, which will change the amount of energy required to heat up a litre of water
1. The amount of heat loss into the environment
2. The change in temperature from x and to y
3. How quickly you want to heat the water from x to y

The higher the final temperature, the more energy required, because the heat loss starts creeping into the system.
The quicker you want to heat the water, the higher the instantaneous energy is required.

At the end, the amount of energy((KWH) in both the cases, higher temperature and time, will translate to the same in kilowatt hours, provided the insulation on the geyser is good. The difference is the size of the electrical wire to carry the current for the higher instant energy applied.