I got my gas bill.

[karl]

I got my gas bill and I'm getting screwed; and not in the good pass me a cigarette kind of way either.

I burn about 1 MCF a month. It hit 2 MCF January.

I pay 14.99 an MCF and a 13.00 connect fee and a few dollars in taxes.

So, I'm paying 30 bucks for a million btus of heat, $22.50 in January.

The wholesale price of natual gas is less than 5 dollars an MCF now, so the gas company is making a killing.

I think I need to explore solar hot water. Even with only spending 360.00 a year to heat hot water. I think I could get a two year pay back or less.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Karl. Why are you heating hot water? We heat only the cold water here. lol

 

[Hiram Maxim]

Karl. Why are you heating hot water? We heat only the cold water here. lol

bwaaaaaaaaaaaa! :lol:

 

[burntime]

If you have nat gas backup you will be happy you pay it if you ever need to leave for a few days. Same here as to taxs and hookup fees. My well water is COLD in the winter so waterheater, stove, and dryer run 50 bucks in the winter asuming no heat from the funace. January the bill was 75 :bug: 25 bucks was heat. I think I can live with that. My cousin was over 300 just for heat and his home is 68. My home hovers around 72 :coolsmile:

 

[LLigetfa]

Karl. Why are you heating hot water? We heat only the cold water here. lol

Ja, I often wondered why people call them hot water heaters. %-P

My Winter bills are roughly three times as much as my summer bills but the Spring and Fall bills spike cuz we let the fire go out. Basically the furnace component in Winter adds up to about $2 a day. Here is a graph the gas Co. give us to chart usage. It's a bit skewed some months cuz they often estimate and always on the high side.

 

[sullystull]

Karl-
You could build yourself one of these to stick on your roof--re: to preheat the water before entering your hot water (or cold water) heater. This is what we use at the Environmental Education Center I work at to teach students about things they can do at their homes to reduce their "carbon footprint". It's a simple design and although we incorporated a solar panel, you wouldn't necessarily need to do that. The solar panel charges the battery that powers the pump. The pump draws water (at 56*) from the 55 gallon drum (we have our well water plumbed directly to the 55 gallon drum) and circulates it through the copper tubing inside the black metal boxes. Once through the metal boxes, it re-enters the 55 gallon drum. If you run the system for about 20 minutes depending on sunshine and air temp, you can raise the water temp to well over 100*. Eventually, this system will also serve as outdoor showers for the staff.

 

[savageactor7]

Karl. Why are you heating hot water? We heat only the cold water here. lol

BWAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA

Savage shoots...and he scores. Karl you could get a demand only water heater, my neighbor did and is saving a lot of money.

 

[WoodMann]

22 that's good, real good. Back in the 'burbs I was forkin' out north of $250 a month to keep the house a balmy 62*, which included heating the water, too. Granted- out here I'm lookin' to cobble a DHW system together. You almost feel as if yer committing a crim by not capturing some of the solar heat floating all over here..................

 

[southland]

Since you have natural gas, I'd recommend a on demand tankless water heater now and then a solar water heater later. The two will complement each other nicely. And both have a tax credits on them. The on demand water heater is up to $1500 this year and the solar water heater is up to $2000 thru 2016.

Here's the info.
(broken link removed to http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=products.pr_tax_credits)
(broken link removed to http://www.energy.gov/taxbreaks.htm)

And the IRS info sheet.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-06-26.pdf

 

[WoodMann]

Thanks, South. But I'l prolly go straight to the Solar. My dad is parting ways with 10 of his solar collectors so I was fixin' to make off with a few, and my water heater, I think it's a 40 gal. is prety new, too. I was gonna add the heat exchanger/ expansion tank unit above it(I grew up around one of those) and power the circulation pumps via solar, of course...............

 

[karl]

Karl-
You could build yourself one of these to stick on your roof--re: to preheat the water before entering your hot water (or cold water) heater. This is what we use at the Environmental Education Center I work at to teach students about things they can do at their homes to reduce their "carbon footprint". It's a simple design and although we incorporated a solar panel, you wouldn't necessarily need to do that. The solar panel charges the battery that powers the pump. The pump draws water (at 56*) from the 55 gallon drum (we have our well water plumbed directly to the 55 gallon drum) and circulates it through the copper tubing inside the black metal boxes. Once through the metal boxes, it re-enters the 55 gallon drum. If you run the system for about 20 minutes depending on sunshine and air temp, you can raise the water temp to well over 100*. Eventually, this system will also serve as outdoor showers for the staff.

I sent you a PM about your panel. I have been interested in building one for a while.

 

[NoPaint]

Do solar water heaters really work though? I don't think you will be happy with that. You are better off having a wood fired? or something similar to heat it. Solar is going to give you water that is slightly cooler than what you pump into it.

 

[Wet1]

Yes! If properly sized/designed, solar can can provide all the HOT water you'd ever need. Even if the system is undersized, it can still preheat the DHW enough to drastically reduce the delta T, so your resulting cost for heating DHW will go down significantly.

 

[WoodMann]

Oh yeah- solar works alright or I wouldn't be so ape about it. I was just at my folks yesterday and did the dishes, I caouldn't stick my hand in the water for long it was so hot. BTW- they also have a 500 gal. hot tub that they heat with Solar, and it can cook you outta there...................