In most South African homes, the electric geyser is the single biggest user of electricity. Heating water only when you need it is one of the easiest ways to bring your bill down.
How a geyser timer saves money
A geyser kept hot all day keeps losing heat and reheating. A timer or smart geyser switch lets it heat only before you need hot water, for example early morning and late afternoon, and stay off the rest of the day.
Common options:
- Mechanical or digital timer in the distribution board: cheap and simple.
- Smart geyser controller (Wi-Fi or app-based): set schedules from your phone, see usage, and switch on remotely if you need extra hot water.
Good settings
- Heating windows: about 2 hours before morning showers and 2 hours before evening use. Adjust to your household.
- Thermostat: around 55–60 °C. Hotter wastes energy and increases scalding risk. Much lower may not stop bacteria growing in the tank.
- Insulate: a geyser blanket and lagging on the first few metres of hot pipe reduce standing heat loss.
Power cuts and solar
- After a long power cut, a full tank needs a few hours to reheat. Set the timer so it doesn't fight your inverter.
- If you have an inverter, the geyser is usually kept off the backup circuit. See inverter and battery backup.
- A solar geyser or heat pump cuts water-heating costs further. A heat pump uses roughly a third of the electricity of an element for the same hot water.
Installation
A geyser timer or smart switch is wired into the geyser circuit in the DB board, so it must be installed by a registered electrician, and the installation should remain compliant with your electrical Certificate of Compliance. Compare electrician prices in Benoni.
No hot water at all? See geyser not heating.