Collector Leaks
Connections, headers and manifold seals at the panel, found with the system at working temperature rather than cold.
Home/Solar Geyser Repairs
Solar geyser repairs in Hermanus mean going onto the roof, because that is where the system is and where almost every fault lives. Controllers, pumps and collector connections fail separately, and they get tested separately.
Tell us what changed and roughly when. Solar faults are usually one component, and knowing the symptom narrows it to one or two before anybody climbs anything.
They fail one at a time, which is the argument against replacing the whole installation when one of them does.
Connections, headers and manifold seals at the panel, found with the system at working temperature rather than cold.
Seized, noisy or running without moving anything. Tested against flow rather than replaced on suspicion.
A drifted tank or collector sensor will stop a perfectly good system dead. Cheap to check, cheap to replace.
The backup element and thermostat inside a solar cylinder fail the same way any other does, and are tested the same way.
Perished insulation and failed connections on the run between collector and tank, which is where heat and water both escape.
Fixings, seals, safety valves, sensors and flow checked once a year, which is the only time anybody looks up there.
Every other appliance in a house announces itself. A washing machine floods the floor you are standing on. A conventional geyser in a ceiling void eventually shows you a stain. A solar installation is the only piece of plumbing most people own that sits entirely outside the building, on a surface nobody visits, held on with fixings nobody inspects.
The result is a very particular failure pattern, and one Overstrand account describes it precisely: a solar collector that had been installed badly, leaks appearing in the roof only when hot water was drawn, and the problem surfacing well after the job was signed off. That is not one bad installation being unlucky. It is the shape of the fault. A connection that is marginal when cold opens as the circuit reaches working temperature and closes again as it cools, so the leak is intermittent, weather-dependent and completely invisible to an inspection carried out first thing on a cool morning with the system idle.
It also means the interval between the defect starting and anybody noticing it is measured in months rather than minutes. In a town where a large number of properties stand empty between visits, that interval is longer still. Water can run into a roof space through an entire winter without a single person being in the house to see the ceiling change colour.
The practical consequence for how a repair is done is simple and it is the reason for the way we work: the system has to be hot when it is inspected. That usually means arriving later in the day rather than first thing, letting the collectors come up to temperature, and looking at the connections under the pressure and expansion they actually operate under. It is slower. It is also the only way to see the fault you were called about.
The second consequence is that the fixings matter as much as the plumbing. Everything up there is exposed to a coastal wind and a salt-laden air that no ceiling void ever has to cope with, and a bracket that has worked loose is a far larger problem than the drip that brought us up the ladder. If you have a solar system on this coast and nobody has been on the roof in three years, book an inspection rather than waiting for a stain. The stain is the expensive way to find out.
Three of them exist because a cold system tells you nothing.
We come when the collectors are up to temperature, because that is when an intermittent leak is actually leaking.
A failed pump is a failed pump. It is not a reason to quote you for a new installation.
Every visit includes the brackets and roof penetrations, because on this coast they are the real risk.
You get pictures of what was found and what was done, which matters when you are not in Hermanus.
What do solar geyser repairs cost in Hermanus?
Less than people expect, because the common failures are small. A circulation pump, a controller, a sensor or a set of perished connector seals are all modest parts. What costs money is roof time, so the call-out covers getting up there and finding the fault, and the repair is quoted separately once it is found.
There is a stain on my ceiling but only sometimes. Why?
Almost always a leak on the hot side or at a collector connection that opens as the system reaches working temperature and closes again as it cools. That is why it seems to come and go, and why an inspection carried out on a cold system at nine in the morning finds nothing. The system has to be hot when it is looked at.
My solar system worked and now the water is cold. Where do I start?
With the controller and the circulation pump, in that order, because they are the cheapest to check and the most likely to have failed. A pump that has seized or a temperature sensor that has drifted will stop the system circulating while everything else remains perfectly sound.
Can a solar geyser be repaired or does the whole thing get replaced?
Repaired, in most cases. Collectors, the tank, the pump, the controller, the sensors and the pipework are separate components and they fail separately. A quote to replace an entire system because one part of it stopped working is a quote worth questioning.
Does the coast do anything to a rooftop system?
Anything mounted outdoors near the sea has a harder life than the same thing inland, and fixings, brackets and exposed fasteners are what show it first. We check those on every visit because a collector that has worked loose is a much larger problem than the leak that brought us up there.
The system is boiling and hissing on a hot day. Is that dangerous?
It means stagnation: the collectors are gaining heat with nowhere to put it, usually because circulation has stopped or the tank is already at temperature. It is hard on seals and on the collectors themselves. Do not draw a hot tap to cool it down in a hurry, and get the circulation fault found rather than living with it.
Can you service the system rather than wait for it to break?
Yes, and on a rooftop installation that is the better economics. Checking fixings, seals, the pump, the sensors and the safety valves once a year costs a fraction of what a leak into a ceiling costs, and it is the only way anybody ever looks at the part of the system you cannot see.
Do you work on heat pumps as well?
Yes. A heat pump is a different machine with a similar job, and the plumbing side of it, the cylinder, the valves, the circulation and the pipework, is the same work. Refrigerant faults inside the unit itself are a refrigeration matter and we will tell you when that is what it is.
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Tell us what the system is doing and whether the problem depends on the weather or the time of day. That distinction usually points straight at the component.