DHW savings $$

[harttj]

Wondering what kind of $$ savings people have with heating their DHW using their alternative fuel boiler.

I heat DHW with electricity and this is my first year with a corn boiler and the electric bill was $40 less last month. I was hoping it was going to be lower, but had no way of knowing for sure how much juice it was sucking down.

Thanks in advance.

Tim

 

[pybyr]

what you save on DHW will vary tremendously depending on your electric rates, how much hot water you use, etc.

someone who has low electric rates, and does not use a lot of hot water, will save a lot less than someone who has high electric rates and a bunch of teenagers in the house....

 

[Plumbit]

Electric water heaters are 100% efficient but not cheap to run,Try to put a propane instantaneous heater on your wish list for 2009 They can get up to high 90's for efficiency they may seem like they use allot of gas when running but nothing when standing by. They also modulate according to incoming water temperature adding to savings

 

[Duetech]

The water that heats my home goes through my dhw sidearm exchanger first. We have an 20" x20" air exchanger in our old oil furnace plenum. The dhw was/is propane and we cook with propane. Our boiler went on line Thanks Giving weekend of 06. Early Jan 07 we got our most recent fill of propane. We normally were paying $245.00 for three months in the summer and $320.00 in the winter for propane. We didn't realize that our water heater was such a pig and most of the neighbors pay more for propane. I scored a good deal on firewood and used what I would have normally spent on propane for one year to buy fire wood for two years with a little left over. We heated our dhw all year long in 07 & 08 with our boiler too. EKO40 Super. The saved money went into boiler payments and we still have about 65% or so of our propane still on hand.

 

[Eric Johnson]

$40 a month starts to add up over time.

 

[ezoffshore]

Next to heating your home the DHW comes in second place for the secont largest user of energy for heat.I have a Marathon 50 gal electric water heater which I installed in June and hooked up to a side arm exchanger all at the same time I installed my OWB. I ran it off the electricity all summer and my electric bills averaged 90 bucks. I dont know how much of that I can contribute to the water heater but I am guessing it would be about 20 bucks of that. Once I started up my E-Classic I shut the breaker right off. Electric bill still averages 90 buck a month but I am running 3 pumps and the blower and control system for OWB. On the other hand my 500 gallon propane tank was at 70% when I took out the gas DHW and put in the OWB and I checked it last Saturday and its still sitting on 70%. I Still have gas clothes dryer and rangewhich evidently use very little compared to what I was burning for DHW. I am very happy now since this time of year I would be going through 250-300 gallons of propane a month and now I dont think I will use that much in a year.

 

[jebatty]

Amount of usage + rates is the issue. Wife and I use about $4.50 of electricity/month for electric hot water. No sense to make a change.

A point of use hot water heater, regardless of fuel source, can actually end up in greater energy use and expenditure if the result is increased use of hot water, as well as a higher water bill. If before a shower was 5 minutes and now is 30 minutes, and multiply that by users, you're going to be "wasting" lots of energy to heat all that water, and you're going to be wasting a lot of water.

Conservation is about using less resources of all kinds, and in the long (or short) run, potable water might be the resource for many, including the USA, that is going to be scarce and very expensive.

 

[steam man]

Amount of usage + rates is the issue. Wife and I use about $4.50 of electricity/month for electric hot water. No sense to make a change.

A point of use hot water heater, regardless of fuel source, can actually end up in greater energy use and expenditure if the result is increased use of hot water, as well as a higher water bill. If before a shower was 5 minutes and now is 30 minutes, and multiply that by users, you're going to be "wasting" lots of energy to heat all that water, and you're going to be wasting a lot of water.

Conservation is about using less resources of all kinds, and in the long (or short) run, potable water might be the resource for many, including the USA, that is going to be scarce and very expensive.

I figure $4.50.month at maybe 11 cents kwh is worth about 140,000 btu's. Maybe 168000 at 80% eff. for an oil fired device which equates to a little over a gallon of heating oil. Sounds like you use just under 200 gallons of hot water a month or 6.5 gallons a day. Lucky. I could use that in my house on a bad day with teenagers.

Mike