Natural Gas Usage on Hot Water Heater

The only natural gas I use in the summer is in my water heater. (An A.O. Smith model). This month it spiked up to 16 therms for no reason I can tell when it is normally 9 therms during summer months. My wife is frugal and has started insisting on turning the heating level down all the way below the recommended level. I suspect that this has something to do with it, but I have no practical or scientific explanation. Would, turning the heating level all the way down cause the gas usage to go up? (A heating and cooling person once told me that it is counterproductive to close air vents in rooms that you are not using because a gas heater is adjusted to heat the whole house, and maybe the same thing is happening here.) Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks,

JD

Reply to
Decij
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More likely your gas Meter Reader made an error or even more likely, he/she was being lazy and estimating the meter readings while down at the lake fishing or at the track betting on the ponys. Estimated readings are more common than most people think. Des

heater. (An A.O.

frugal and has

below the

Reply to
Des Perado

Reply to
Don Young

Not the case. Our water usage was down.

JD

Reply to
Decij

The others supplied the answer to your real question, if not the one you asked.

As for what you asked; turning down temp will reduce the heating cost, very slightly, and reduce the effective capacity of the heater, lengthen it's life and be a little safer.

Reply to
Joseph Meehan

Overall water usage could be down, even if hot water usage is up.

Reply to
Joseph Meehan

Probably an estimated bill. We get that ever other month. We got our bill in June and it said we used more gas than we thought..Have not used the furnace since April..then in July, we got the bill and said it was an actual reading and our gas bill was about ten dollars.

Reply to
Gary

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