gman1001 said:
I have a 3200 sq ft home in New England that was 100% electrically heated when I bought it. (baseboard) The house is super insulated. 2x6 walls then 1/2 inch foam board then sheetrock.
Since then I have tracked my costs and they really are not that bad. Over the past two years Northeast Util. has jacked up the prices big time. Thats when I started burning wood. I now only use my Electric in about 2- rooms in the house. My Woodstove does the rest. Overall I'm very happy with my home heating... No oil to furnace or boiler to maintain or clean... I have a real turnkey home. WIth wood, the majority of my home is about 75 degrees in the coldest months
If I didnt use the stove i'd be paying about 5-700 dollars a month during the coldest months.
Tell me how would a timer help me with my 80 Gallon Elec. Hot Water heater?
Gman, Sounds like you got a good setup going.
To answer your question, and others...It all depends on what size heater you have and how much hot water you use.
Timers (both utility and consumer installed) aren't all that popular these days...but 20-30 years ago they were all the rage. Partly because efficiency and technology has increased and the benefit is not as great anymore.
I would say a 50 gallon heater is the 'squeak point' so to speak. At less than 50 gallons it's not worth it, 50 and above it might be worth considering, 80 and up some potential.
First you have to consider how an electric hot water heater works (very important to the equation). Larger hot water heaters (generally anything above 30 gallons) heat the water by use of TWO heating elements (generally 4500 watts) that are "interlocked". Only one element will "fire" at a time....but will constantly maintain temperature 24/7. If (in your case) you have an 80 gallon tank you are constantly heating 80 gallons of water. A timer can be installed for "long periods of rest" to inhibit the lower element from 'firing'...seeing as heat rises, by doing this you cut the size heater in half and energy use in half also. Recovery times for electric HW heaters (while a little slower than NG) are fairly quick...so the inconvience factor is minimal (if the set times are 'coordinated' just right). It's like this: "X"% of the time you need minimal hot water, so a 40 gallon heater would be more than adequate...but there may be times (say when everyone in a family of four let's say) are going to be using the hot water so that 80 gallons gets pressed into service.
Kinda along the lines of 'working smarter not harder'.
Where the utility is concerned the benefit gets a little more 'shady'. In the 'old days' (in my area for example) some utility companies offered "J-Rate Billing"..."They made a deal...they worked with you" so to speak, but the time curve worked in reverse so to speak. They would install a seperate meter specially wired with a "5th and 6th terminal" that was basically a "switch leg" that would inhibit the lower element (generally from 7AM to 4PM or even as late as 10PM depended on the utility and the plan you wanted) by signing up for this "offer" you got a specifically reduced rate solely for your hot water. This was the best deal going, discounts could be in the neighborhood of 35% or more because for the utility this was in effect a "one way battery".
Enter the 80's...and the microprocessor:
The utility's went "high tech" and took it a step farther (In theory anyway). For example MECO (Massachusetts Electric Company) part of the "NEES family" (New England Electric System...the good old days...ahhh) had some great ideas that for whatever reason dropped by the wayside...go figure. MECO had always offered it's customers "water heater rental service". They instsalled, owned and maintained the tank all for a monthly fee. So they decided to try something new, using 'thier heaters' as a test...with the ultimate goal of setting up all heaters (company or private) on the 'new system'.
They installed an RF microprocessor controlled 'system' right in your home. They could 'que' your water heaters lower element to shut down during periods of high demand on thier system as a "load shedding" method. Two boxes were installed, one on the tank to do the switching, connected by a low voltage cable to the RF reciever mounted on the back of the house...fairly discreet. Both boxes had LED's to indicate the status of your water heater.
Sounds complicated but it was fairly simple in reality...at any rate it fell out of favor, more than likely because it got in the way of profit $$$'s.
From an enviromental standpoint this could be considered a "green idea" when you really think about it...brought about from the people that brought us the 'bear swamp project' (pumped storage hydro project in western MA).
"...This ain't your Grandfathers NG water heater..." lol
