Can I decrease the heat loss?

[Stormin Mormon]

Any cites on the web?

[Stormin Mormon]

8 galons? Wow! Most folks scale way back on their electric use during a power cut. One hour morning and night. Are you leaving it run all day and all night?

[Eric in North TX]

I did last time. The city (power company) had a crew fueling the generators in our area for a 2 weeks 24 hrs a day. The lines and poles were down on our street, & they felt obligated to keep us going. They supplied generators to folks who lacked them. My closest neighbor got one of those & it was sufficient to power her well which we shared through a long double female garden hose linking the 2 properties. We are in an odd situation where we are in the city limits, but lack city services other than municipal electricity. There are 8 house on our road, but it is mostly open land / farms and ranches.

[willshak]

C & E wrote the following:

Put your hand on the heater case. Is the outside hot? If so, then you need extra insulation. If it is room temperature, you don't. I have a 4 year old, 40 gal. GE propane heater. The outside is 72 F

[Mark]

the best way to save money on hot water is to turn the temperature setting down. Turn it down to the point where you need to use almost full hot to take a shower. Also if you have a mixing valve, close it. Mark

[Stormin Mormon]

I've never heard of loaner generators. Good service, there.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Not so quick. Last week I know of a person that died from Legionellae (he had other complications) and his girlfriend was also infected. They suspect it was from the water heater. He was a cheap sort of guy and did turn down the temperature. do NOT go below 130 degrees.

• 70 to 80 °C (158 to 176 °F): Disinfection range

• At 66 °C (151 °F): Legionellae die within 2 minutes

• At 60 °C (140 °F): Legionellae die within 32 minutes

• At 55 °C (131 °F): Legionellae die within 5 to 6 hours

• Above 50 °C (122 °F): They can survive but do not multiply

• 35 to 46 °C (95 to 115 °F): Ideal growth range

• 20 to 50 °C (68 to 122 °F): Legionellae growth range

• Below 20 °C (68 °F): Legionellae can survive but are dormant

[trader4]

Terry says he shut off his water heater in a 60F basement and went away for a 2 week vacation and upon returning the water was STILL TEPID. Clearly water just sitting in a water heater tank cools off very slowly. So, how drastic of a savings do you really think you're going to get by putting the water heater on a timer? You don't save anything until the water cools off enough where it would have come on anyway. From that point on, you do save, because the heat loss will now be less than it would have been if the temp were higher. But given that it cools very slowly, in practice you are going to save very little, if anything.

Also, for many people, putting the water heater on a timer would be a losing proposition and take a very long time to break even. For example, if you can't do the work yourself and have to call an electrician, it ain't gonna be cheap.

I'm going to do the experiment here with my water heater and measure the water temp at night before shutting it off and again in the morning. My prediction: It isn't going to drop very much at all.

I saw some DOE data a while back that showed solar heating of water in the final analysis wasn't significantly cheaper than other simpler choices like storage water heaters.