Help! How much does turning off the water heater actually save?

[Aleta]

Mine does, I live in Florida.

[Ima saver]

My electric bill use to be $400 a month when I lived in fla. and that was 23 years ago. Now, I live in a much bigger house and my bill has been under $100 for the past 8 months.

[boefixepa]

The best way to go on these things are timed/programable thermostates. It takes the 'remembering' out of it. It works great for my AC which is set at 84 during the day and programed to kick on and lower the house temp to 76 degrees thirty minutes before I get home. I don't have to come home and then 'wait' for the house to cool down. It SAVES money and electricity. It is a MYTH that it takes less energy to keep the house at one temp all day long. You can do searches on the internet and come up with all kinds of explanations debunking that myth. The programable thermostates are not complicated, can be bought cheeply at any home improvent store, and are easily installed....get one and you will enjoy it and it will take the guess work out of turing the temps up and down.

As far as the water heater, those are a bit trickier to regulate. The best thing, as long as no one is at home during the day. Is to get a timer installed. That take a bit more know how. If you are handy you can do it, if not you may have to call and have one installed by a professional. If it time to replace your water heater I'd recommend upgrading to an 'on demand' water heater. I had on when I lived in Europe and LOVED IT!! They are not common hear yet, but I bet they will in 10 years. Rather than keeping 40-60 gallons hot all the time. When hot water is demanded they kick on and instanyly heat the water my running it through a back and forth snake of pipes with flames on them. It runs as long as the water is demanded, and it doesn't take but a few seconds to get HOT water, and then shuts off when the demand is stopped. MUCH more efficents. The install costs is a bit more, but you never run out of hot water and the unit will more than pay for it's self over time.

Good luck!

[Aleta]

I live in a 1648 sq. foot house and I've never had a bill that large. Although last year was higher. My largest bill was $172.00 and that was in June. Yours really is low. We'll have to learn your secrets. One thing that helps us is the way we planted our trees.

[Aleta]

I agree about the programmable thermostats. I think that they are a good idea. My son had one of the water heaters installed that you talk about. Problem is that you can't use two different water sources at the same time. If you have a large family, it might not be that much cheaper to use. They use a lot of electricity but generally run fewer times so it can be cheaper in the long run. Anyway, he's not totally sold on it yet.

[boefixepa]

Aleta, good info, the one we had in Europe was gas, not electrical. I wonder what difference that makes. We never had a problem taking a shower and doing dishes at the same time....but it make be different here. Something to research for sure.

[Fern]

Well, let's put it this way. I live in CT, a state where electricity rates are among the highest. We had two rate increases late last year and this year, and my monthly electric bills hover in the $60 to $70 range.

I attribute this to:
* putting my electric hot water heater on a timer (similar to what i did for the oil heat)

* not using the clothes dryer in summer and as much as possible in the cooler months

* exchanging an older energy hogging dehumidifier i use in basement for an energy star dehumidifier

* switching all my lights to energy efficient ones and being conscientious about turning lights off when i dont' need them on

* buying a newer fridge to replace 10 year old fridge

[krayziebone33]

The best way to go on these things are timed/programable thermostates. It takes the 'remembering' out of it. It works great for my AC which is set at 84 during the day and programed to kick on and lower the house temp to 76 degrees thirty minutes before I get home. I don't have to come home and then 'wait' for the house to cool down. It SAVES money and electricity. It is a MYTH that it takes less energy to keep the house at one temp all day long. You can do searches on the internet and come up with all kinds of explanations debunking that myth. The programable thermostates are not complicated, can be bought cheeply at any home improvent store, and are easily installed....get one and you will enjoy it and it will take the guess work out of turing the temps up and down.

As far as the water heater, those are a bit trickier to regulate. The best thing, as long as no one is at home during the day. Is to get a timer installed. That take a bit more know how. If you are handy you can do it, if not you may have to call and have one installed by a professional. If it time to replace your water heater I'd recommend upgrading to an 'on demand' water heater. I had on when I lived in Europe and LOVED IT!! They are not common hear yet, but I bet they will in 10 years. Rather than keeping 40-60 gallons hot all the time. When hot water is demanded they kick on and instanyly heat the water my running it through a back and forth snake of pipes with flames on them. It runs as long as the water is demanded, and it doesn't take but a few seconds to get HOT water, and then shuts off when the demand is stopped. MUCH more efficents. The install costs is a bit more, but you never run out of hot water and the unit will more than pay for it's self over time.

Good luck!

Thank you. Try explaining this to my blockhead roommate who wants to keep the AC running even when there is nobody home. I tried to explain to his a** that its a myth but he aint hearing me. I even called the electric company just to be sure, and they backed me up completely. Guess what? HE STILL doesn't want to turn it off during the day. Its funny how bad information spreads so easily, though. I asked some co-workers about it today and they all agreed unanimously that keeping it on at one temperature is the right thing to do. When I asked them where they heard it or how can they back it up, none of them had anything to say.

Its like driving 50 miles to buy gas that's ten cents cheaper than where you live and then wasting half a tank of gas to make it back to your hometown. There is no point and you actually end up spending more money than if you would have gotten the gas from your hometown.

[mom-from-missouri]

Every time someone mentions turning the water off I want to point out some health risks associated with not having the water hot enough to kill bacterial all the time. Since it is heated it cools to a nice warm bath for lots of organisms.

You can Google a few news stories yourself, but one way to think of it is to look at Steve's cup of tea..would you leave the water on all the time sitting out? most of us would go get a fresh cup from the tap, your hot water heater isn't closed/cool like a tap.

If you did leave the water out all day you would prolly make certain it boiled before you drank it....but your water heater doesn't boil the water before you take a shower with it....

Not saying you can't, just saying you might want to look into all the risks as well as the cost savings.

Princess is right on the money. A family from church about lost a child this spring from this. Of course, lots of things come into play, how long its off, what temp it was at and what temp it cooled to and for how long, if the water was just for bathing or was drunk, if its well water with no chemicals, or city water with lots of chemicals added (chlorine etc...)

I'd never do it. A Kansas City daycare several years back that had babies and elderly daycare had some of their people DIE from it. Theirs was not off, but set too low. They said it was set low to prevent scalding.

Is it worth a couple bucks to do something that could kill you or make you sick?

[click4credit]

Probably worth turning off during the day if you know your out for long periods. If your in and out alot then turning the temperature down will save lots of energy. Rather than having the hot water so hot you have to mix it with lots of cold water you can set the temperature around the hottest you would want it for a shower/bath. This also reduces the risk of anyone getting scalded by the water so good for safety and your budget.

[cschin4]

I really think this is one of those things where the actual savings is often overestimated.
My gas bills in the summer are very low. And, I have a gas dryer, gas stove and gas hot water heater. So, to turn it down a little is not likely to save me that much money or have that much of an impact on the bill. My advice would be to just turn it down to a level that you find comfortable for bathing, etc. And, keep in mind that you do want hot water available for doing dishes and laundry. So, I would not turn it down more than necessary to ensure that.

[Ima saver]

Well, it has worked for me for 30 years, so i will stick with turning it off 98% of the time! The hot water heater has been off all night and today. I will turn it on 30 minutes before my husband comes home from work to take his shower.

[five2one]

DH installed a tankless water heater. Our traditional one was electric, this one is gas. Our gas bill increase has been negligible, but our electric bill dropped about $40/month. I grew up in Europe with tankless heaters in apartments and we never had any trouble for demand. Ours is considered a "single use" model, but we can shower and run the dishwasher or washing machine at the same time. 2 showers, no, but we never really need to do that anyway. The nice thing is that everyone can have a nice warm shower now without waiting for the water to reheat. There are multi use models that have enough power to heat water for more applications, but since we are already on load-bearing electricity rates, we had adjusted our lifestyle accordingly and didn't think it was worth the extra expense. Also, DH did the installation, so that saved a lot in the initial expense. Ours was about $700, which we should recoup in about 18 months with simple math. Another bonus is that it's up on a back wall and freed up some useable floor space in our DDs' play room.