Cut Hot Water Heating Systems Costs In Half!
Our hot water bill was killing us! We have a 40 year old oil hot water heater. It heats the water fast, but it is inefficient, and sends a lot of heat up the chimney! Our bill has been as high as $120 per month when fuel oil was up at $4/gallon! I planned on going electric, but our older home electric system is maxed out. An option would be to replace our electric range with propane, but we just don't have the 1000-plus dollars to do this right now. Another option is to go with a propane hot water heater. What I plan to do instead, consisted of:
- Have Hot Water Heater Serviced - Some tell me this will help to reduce fuel use greatly. I am thinking maybe 5% (at most). But it is a good thing to have done every few years.
- Turn Temperature Down - Reducing the high and low temps on the thermostat will save money in direct proportion to the degrees cut. So, my incoming cold water was being heated from 45 deg F to 140 deg F but now is being heated from 45 deg F to 130 deg F. That is a drop of 10 deg out of a total of 95 deg or 10/95 = about 10%.
- Use Hot Water Heater Insulating Blanket - The difference between an on-demand hot water heater and a tank hot water heater is the heat loss occuring as the hot water sits in the tank. And, in fact, our hot water heater will run in the middle of the night due to standby losses. The insulating blanket will reduce these losses and will save as much as 5% according to the source at energy.gov.
- Install Temper Tank With Heat Recovery - This can help our situation greatly! When our hot water heater is heating up, the exhaust will heat the stove pipe so much that it is too hot too touch without getting burned! Our hot water heater, at best, is sending 40% of the heat value of the fuel oil up the chimney! So I installed a temper tank that uses some of that heat to help heat the water. A temper tank is simply a "dummy" hot water tank that allows incoming cold water to reach room temperature. In my system, this tank will even pre-heat the water to as much as 70 degrees or more. If the water were heated from 45 deg F to 70 deg F, the hot water heater is only heating a little more than half as much! This could save as much as 30% of the hot water heating cost!
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NEW! Watch the video of this hot water heater recovery system on my blog!