hot water - thinking of going electric

[jebatty]

...using 700kwh a month water usage for 3 of us.

You saw our usage above, about 130 kwh/month for 2. Someone is spending lots and lots of time throwing hot water down the drain from the shower, or washing lots of clothes in hot water when cold water will do, or simply turning the hot water faucet on and coming back tomorrow. I guess you pick the ways you want to spend money that otherwise could be saved for an earlier and better retirement, or funding the college education, or investing in property or a business. And what about just conservation? -- good, clean water is something taken way too much for granted. Either you consume it and it is gone, or you invest it in a future opportunity.

 

[ssupercoolss]

700kwh does seem pretty high, just for hot water. thats more than i used in august running the a/c all month. yes, electric is going to be derugulated in PA in 2010. whats the price of oil going to be in 2010? it just seems to me like having my boiler make my hot water in the summer is pretty unefficient. i think it might be somewhat more efficient for someone with a larger demand for hot water, i am single. i use a little hot water at 5 am to brush my teeth, then about 5 pm to take a shower. maybe run the dishwasher twice a week, maybe do 2 loads of laundry a week. i would really like to go tankless, but thats just not gonna happen at this house. i have one at my cabin in the mountains and i really cant say enough good things about it.

 

[mtaccone]

Damn right 700 seems high but At the time I had a shower head that ran 5 gpm and me and the wife take 2 showers a day usually. then clothes in the wash once a day with warm. the water heater was limed up when I took it out which could have contributed but I still use 25 therms of gas a month now that I switched. I also have a lower flow shoer now that also helps. I use 200 gals of cold a day thank god I dont pay for that!

 

[steam man]

looked at a product by grundfos that looked interesting. It hooks to whatever hotwater tank you have and then you put a thermal valve on your furthest plumbing fixture, so that when you turn on the hot water it bypasses the "cooler" water in your lines to the cold lines until the water reaches I think 90 degrees then allows it to close. There is a pressure pump that kicks on when there is an open valve.
I don't understand where that pressure goes in your cold side? They claim it saves thousands of gallons a year in water which if you are on rain catchment like me it is something to consider?

I have one of the Grundfos recirculating pumps you mentioned. It basically sends hot water up to the farthest fixture and returns tempered water back down your cold water line to return to your water heater. Yes you'll save water but you'll also use more energy in heat losses through the pipes. I would suggest insulating any lines that you use this on. There's no free lunch around here. I use it mainly to keep one particular line from freezing on the sub zero days. I am thinking of also using it to move hot water from my solar preheat tank into my main tank when the preheat tank is up to temp to avoid solar system shutdown and stagnation. Sort of a mini heat dump.

Mike

 

[zadwit]

Where can I buy a "side arm heater" to attach to my electic hot water heater or is it better to just by a super stor? I use the EKO-60 to heat 1000 gallons of water, then pull off the storage THRU a flat plate HX to the oil boiler. Have a coil in the oil boiler for domestic hot water. Money is not too much of an issue but I would like to shut the oil boiler down in the summer months and still have DHW so I will install some kind of water heater.
Thanks

 

[zadwit]

OH, I forgot, Electric rates are .34 a KWH here in the interior of Alaska....

 

[Redox]

OH, I forgot, Electric rates are .34 a KWH here in the interior of Alaska....

Damn! That's probably because they are burning $5/gal oil to generate it...

Chris

 

[trailhound68]

I use electric HW for 7 or so months and estimate about $35/mo. for a family of three.
I use the oil boiler to make heat at night in the shoulder months.
Come Nov. the wood boiler takes over and does it all; House, Garage and HW 'till April.
I think the electric is the most efficient for domestic HW. I'm not about to run my wood boiler all summer for HW only.