Electric Water Heater In A Power Outage

We each pick our excesses, and using a genny to provide electricity for an electric hwh is one of those. I just came back from 4 days/3 nights of canoeing/camping n the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in northern MN - not a drop of hot water for "showers," but a daily swim or two in 60F lake water. Just being in the BWCAW is a luxury. No people, only the sounds of nature, including trumpeter swans, shrieking eagles, a myriad of birds I can't ID, a splash from a jumping fish, and more. Didn't miss the hot shower at all, in fact, reveled in the experience.

At the same time my excess is the genny-powered circuit for the computer/internet/TV/sound system. Hot water for a shower, OK, but maybe consider a sponge bath and a pot of hot water heated on the fire pit outside or a rocket stove?

Regarding your water heater problem. Take the cover off where you go to adjust the temperature and look to see if there is a reset button. You can also check your breaker box to see if the breaker popped.

In an outage, in the non-freezing months, a garden hose (or laundry tub) and cold water is enough to wash your head which is about the only thing that really gets bad enough to matter during a medium term outage. A dirty head makes you feel pretty gross. A dirty body might be unpleasant but far more tolerable for most situations IMO.

In the winter I could still use the hose but you folks that live in super cold climates might not be able to run water through your hose or you might freeze to death.

We younger folks have largely abandoned baths in favor of showers. Rolling around in your own dirty water never made much sense to me and the water savings is significant. So heating up a bucket of water doesn't get us anything.

For what it's worth.....

Hurricane Irene - Power was out for 5 full days, early sunday until early friday.

Brand new generator, still in the box, Briggs & Stratton Storm Responder 6250 / 8250 surge. It powered our whole house and the 250 feet of romex feeding my neighbors fridge and freezer.

We started with plenty of fuel on hand, 40 gal in the boat tank, 25 gal in the 2 sled tanks, 15 gal in 3 garage cans. We only used about 17 gal total.

I was cautious at first, energizing the largest load first and turning smaller breakers on as needed but eventually got to the point of - fire up the genny, let our place come to life, then plug in the neighbor. The 240 well pump, oil boiler & tankless coil did just fine keeping us clean and happy.

Luckily the weather was plesant after the storm so all we did was open windows and run the whole house fan a bit but if we had to we could have run the window A/C's enough to cool and dehumidify intermittantly.

Storm Sandy - We never lost power, but had the genny ready, with 15 gal in the jerry cans and 35 gal in a poly 55 gal drum in the garage.