Reuse Old or Buy New…

In the last few years the Australian Governments had a program where they would give you money to convert your existing hot water heaters to one that was predominantly solar, or running as a heat pump. I got a quote to get Solar Hot Water installed, and one of the things that was included was a new Hot Water Tank. This was the main reason I did not upgrade. You see, when I bought it under five years before, I purchased one that was ‘Solar Ready’. I asked about using this existing heater with Solar Panels, and I was told that this was not permitted, for reasons I really cannot work out.

The cost of the new tank would have consumed about half the grants for getting Solar Hot Water installed. I did not believe that this was a good use of resources. I still plan to upgrade to solar, but I will do so keeping the existing tank. It just so happens that a former client has donated an expensive solar collector for a project that never went ahead, so when I am ready, the cost of upgrading will be minimal. That being said, with my existing usage patterns and cheap off peak power, it will be a while before there is an economic incentive for me to upgrade.

Which gets me to the point of this post – and one of the core concepts behind Redshift Wireless. When should you reuse old, rather than buy new?

There are a lot of products out there that come with energy saving ideas. Air Conditioners with Inverter Technology, Water Heaters with user adjustable thermostats, Pool Pumps with high efficiency drives. These are all good things if you are buying new, but what about if you have already purchased the device? These devices are not cheap to build, either with the purchase cost or the environmental impact in their construction. Even if buying new, often people will buy the cheapest item they can and then later decide they need more from the item.

Why would a builder spend another $100 on an Air Conditioner with more advanced controls, or a Hot Water Heater with an adjustable thermostat when these items do not affect the purchasing decision, and can save some significant amounts when split over an entire apartment building?

In this case, the residents and building managers who have to live in the building and manage its operations are then the ones who are stuck with trying to support the under-provisioned hardware. That is where Redshift Wireless fits in. Our plan is to support people who have infrastructure that they want to control better. Just what devices we are marketing and how we are planning to operate will become public over time. But you can be assured that we will be doing some cool stuff.