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.
Attachment 6113

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.
Attachment 6113

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?