Mud Room Temp & Hot Water Heater

[zendiagrams]

Our Mud room acts as a laundry room, entrance from the yard and garage, and also where the backyard door has a dog door. I would like to keep the room cool since it's not used much, plus with the dog door, there is a draft, I need to replace the crappy old door, and get a nicer dog door (3 flap cold weather) but budget wise I have more key things to do. Even with that loss of heat, the room I would like to stay as cool as I can, but there is a Electric Tank water heater, it's about 8 years old (replaced within the next year or tow) with a new thermal radiant blanket on it.

How cool can I keep the room, and on a guess how much do you think the room temp will be on the tank. The room has Electric BaseBoard Heat, I am trying to figure out how cool I can keep the room, vs the electric the tank will use vs the heat in the room and the electric used there. Do you think 50 degrees is too cold and the water tank would work too hard, or do you think the electric used on the baseboard to keep it at 60-65 is worse and what we are doing now.

I plan on replacing the baseboard with a Cadet Fan unit, this way we can heat the room fast when doing laundry.
I also recycle the heat from the dryer back into the room during this time, so that helps.

 

[LLigetfa]

Insulate the pipes on the water heater if you haven't already. With having the extra blanket already on the heater, keeping the room at 50 should not cause the water heater to use more energy.

 

[semipro]

I'd consider not using the baseboard at all unless you're going to be in there. Whether the room gets heat via leakage through the water heater insulation or the baseboards doesn't really matter. Both are electrical resistant heat and neither will produce heat any more efficiently than the other. ER is ER. Its nearly 100% efficient but still relatively expensive compared to other fuel sources.

Also, if you've found a really good dog door I'd love to know more about it. I've always avoided putting one in because none seem to seal well.

 

[zendiagrams]

I'd consider not using the baseboard at all unless you're going to be in there. Whether the room gets heat via leakage through the water heater insulation or the baseboards doesn't really matter. Both are electrical resistant heat and neither will produce heat any more efficiently than the other. ER is ER. Its nearly 100% efficient but still relatively expensive compared to other fuel sources.

Also, if you've found a really good dog door I'd love to know more about it. I've always avoided putting one in because none seem to seal well.

I use a 2 door system. There is the door to get out side, then there is a in wall door between the mud room and the foyer for the basement. The one I have inside seems pretty good so far, but I have yet to see it in use with harsh winter from the out side. I currently on the inside have the petsafe extreme weather door. However, with my Pit bulls running in an out all the time it's held up, but the only draft I can feel would be from the mud room and there is none. How it would fare from out side not sure, I may get this one for the new outside door. The other one a few friends of mine have who either have pit's or something bigger suggested the Plexidor, however, I want to see what the longer term durability is. Right now they both have only 6 months and 8 months of use. (broken link removed to http://www.dogdoors.com/products.php?cat_id=14)

 

[zendiagrams]

Its nearly 100% efficient but still relatively expensive compared to other fuel sources.

Also, if you've found a really good dog door I'd love to know more about it. I've always avoided putting one in because none seem to seal well.

Right now Electric is my only option. I am in debate still I am either going to get a LP OnDemand unit for the house, or I may get 3 on demand units one for each bathroom and one for the kitchen and be electric based since we may very well get solar if we stay here long enough, so with the on demand and a tank on the roof, that would I think be the best method, plus I do not need a huge unit.