Hi all,

Been meaning to put this up for a while as it might be helpful to those already out here......we got solar hot water put in about 8 weeks ago and have been having 'free' hot water ever since!

Several companies who do this take off the grants from the price and claim the grants themselves so you just have to pay the difference. All in all, expect to pay about $2500 for a system to suit a family of up to 6 people (assuming the grants of approx $1400 have already been deducted off the price). It takes half a day to install and we have 2 panels and a tank on the roof. They can do tanks in a range of colours so we have a white tank on our white roof. I thought it would look unsitely at first but it looks fine - then tank is fairly compact.

Generally you use solar for 6 months of the year, switching over to electric when the clocks go back and flicking it onto solar when the clocks go forward but, obviously this can vary a little bit depending on the whether (as all those who live here know the weather is always unseasonally hot/cold/windy/wet -delete as appropriate - for the time of year!)

The system should repay its self in electricity savings in 3-5 years. We just had our querterly bill and it was $340 rather than $550 and we changed over to solar during the quarter so it is making a significant difference. We intend to stay here for 15 years so it is definately worth doing.

We got quotes from Beasley and Edwards (and used Beasley) but I am sure there are plenty of other companies out there who do it.

Hope this is useful to someone,

Claire

We to have solar hot water and got edwards to install it, our back up heater is run on gas so we didn't get a full rebate , still worth having, our gas bill for the last quarter was 45 - 50 bucks , 12 bucks was usage the rest was service charge .

travis

Hi Claire , Thanks for that . Its something That is on our "list" of things that need doing , so you have saved me looking it up :D

Julie x