Siti Kalijah Ibrahim
Raymond Terrace NSW
Dear Michael
When our Off Peak electric hot water system ruptured its tank, my husband & I wanted to replace it with a more environmentally friendly water heater. While he was not so concerned about putting a large, heavy conventional solar heater on the roof, I did not like the idea as I felt it would detract from the appearance of our home. However when we saw the Quantum Compact Solar water heater it seemed like our problems had been solved. We could have all the benefits of a normal solar water heater without having anything on the roof at all - wow!
The Compact does produce some operating noise while heating (which naturally an electric heater doesn't) however we do not find this obtrusive nor annoying in the least. Being installed outside under our back veranda it is very difficult to hear it inside the house. Our refrigerator is much more audible than the Quantum heater.
Since installing our new Quantum Compact Solar 270-T2-EC we have noticed a reduction in energy used for hot water of about 400kWh per quarter. Being only a two person family we do not have a large hot water demand, but imagine the energy savings of a 4 to 6 person household if we can save this much energy with just two people using the system!
Before it was replaced, the Off Peak 1 electric heater often experience hot water shortages due to the hot water being used early in the day - by the evening the tank would be cold as it could not reheat. To operate this heater on a higher tariff i.e. Off Peak 2 or Full Domestic would have been prohibitively expensive so we had to live with it.
Initially we ran the Quantum heater on the same Off Peak 1 tariff as the old electric heater. Naturally this meant it too could not heat during the day so might run out of water, similar to the electric unit (it also forced the Quantum to work during its least efficient time - the middle of the night). Since it was using so much less energy it was economically viable to switch the Quantum heater to a higher tariff - we went to Off Peak 2 (extended hours).
This dramatically improved the operation of the Quantum, its running times dropping back quite a bit especially during winter. While the running costs are a bit higher than when we had the Quantum on Off Peak 1, it is still less than the running cost of our old electric unit plus it gives the benefit of never running out of hot water.
The Quantum now cycles on and off during the day, generally it does a run of about 45 minutes mid morning with another 30 to 60 minute run when the Off Peak 2 power comes back on at 23:00 hours. Total daily running times are between 1.5 to 2.5 hours (depending on the season).
Thanking you for a great water heater!