If you go on vacation and turn off the well pump and water pressure booster pump, do you also have to turn off the gas valve to the propane hot-water heater pilot?
Or do you just turn the heat down from 130 (or whatever) to cold?
What's the right way to save on propane and electricity in terms of what to do with the well pump, booster pump and hot water heater when leaving for weeks?
1a. Is the risk and bother of your precautions really worth it ?
John T.
The gas use would vary from me if he is going away in January in a northern state and propane is more than natural gas. If I was to turn my water heater off while away for usually 2 weeks, I'd save less than a dollar.
My gas bill for clothes dryer, hot water, grilling, cooking, usually runs $9 to $10 a month. In the past 5 years here, I've never heard the water heater kick on to maintain, only when water is being used.
The question is one of procedures, as most people would prefer to waste all the resources of the world but I'm not one of those selfish people.
I am just asking bout the procedure since it's not about bother or risk. It's about asking how the systems work.
If you don't know how the systems work, you can't possibly answer the question.
I think you misunderstood as there is no risk and no bother. If you don't know how the systems work - you can't help me.
The only question was what was the proper procedure for doing it.
For example, if you shut the water pressure booster pump off and you do not shut off the propane to the pilot light - what happens?
That is the question. It's a mechanical question asked of people who understand home systems. If you don't understand home systems, you might consider it a risk.
But it's no risk and no bother.
It's just a question of procedure.
For example, if the hot water tank runs low (perhaps due to lack of incoming pressure), what happens to the propane gas heating cycle?
It's a risk - reward question. My BIL went for a tropical vacation and turned down his furnace to save a few bucks - came home to a flooded basement as a water pipe froze & burst on the main floor near a kitchen window ... what a mess ! .. all for the very little money that it would have cost to keep the house just a few degrees warmer. John T.
Same as if you are at home. Being away on vacation doesn't change how your system works. ... unless you screw around with it for some reason. ps : most home insurance policies require regular inspections when you are away on holiday. John T.
I know how the system works. I just don't see a reason to shut the gas off as the savings are very minimal. On return, you have to bring it back to temperature and much of your savings is now gone.
Some systems, when shut down are more prone to problems at startup too. It is not about being selfish but being sensible.
I was a licensed engineer for steam boilers and operated manufacturing plants. They are just an oversized version of your water heater and we did not always shut them off when idle.
BTW, it is a WATER HEATER, not a HOT water heater. There is no need to heat hot water.
If the pump fails, and the water leaks enough to drain the heater, having the gas off would reduce the chance of damage.
Gas Water Heaters: Built-In Protections Gas-fired water heaters are equipped with several safety mechanisms designed to prevent dangerous situations. One expert in the field explains, "Gas fired water heaters have pressure relief valves, AND high temperature limit switches that shut the boiler or water heater down if it runs out of water." These features are critical in preventing overheating and the potential for explosions.
When leaving our 50 year old house for more than several days I shut off the water supply and turn the water heater to "vacation" mode - basically just on pilot - and open the uppermost faucet in the house to keep pipe pressure at atmospheric + gravity. By doing this IF a water pipe were to burst (it won't with no pressure) I don't have to fight with the insurance company because the house was left "vacant" Coming home from holiday to a flooded house has to be a BITCH!!!!
I have city water, oil heat with forced air, and an electric water heater. Not very much like you. And I live in Baltimore. You apparently don't live here.
So our situation is different, but when I go away for a week I don't turn things off. When I go away for a month or more I turn off the furnace, turn off the water heater, turn off the water, drain the water pipes, put RV antifreeze (not auto antifreeze) in all the traps, sinks, shower, bathtub, and toilets.)
When I get home and turn the water heater on, I have hot water in 4 hours or so, or less. It's no inconvenience at all afaic.
And the house is warm enough in about 2 hours, even in January. The idea that you lose what you saved disregards all the heat that is lost from a 70^ house versus a 40 or 50 degree house for a month. If it's
30 degrees out all the time, it's a 40^ differential between a heated house and the outside instead of a 10 or 20 degree^ differential between an unheated house and the outside. Whatever you saved what you were gone IS saved, you don't lose it in the 2 to 4 hours it takes to heat the house or the water.I think this January in 4 weeks I may have saved $300 on heating oil, but I have no idea how much I saved on electricity. But it's not just the money I save. I'm not wasting natural resources, whatever they uses to make the electricity. (Even if it were wind or solar, the electricity that makes is wasted and doesn't supply some grid where oil or gas is the fuel.) and it also wastes the resources they will have to expend to find and retrieve more fuel for electricity (I guess that's the same thing, but it makes it more clear, maybe.)
How hard is it to relight your pilot. I thought it was easy. Hold a match there, hold the button for 30?? seconds, and it's lit?
BTW, two weeks ago I found a 1" diameter hole in my water main's pressure regulator. It spouted water a foot high in the basement until I figured out that the water had NOT been turned off for the whole n'hood. If this had happened this past January when I was gone for 4 weeks, it would have done this for 4 weeks. My sump pump, 15 feet away**, was expelling water as fast as it could, and water on the floor was only about 1/4" at most when I found it (and probably wasn't greater than that, I think, but not everyone has a sump pump.
**My sump has a rubber liner that goes up about 3/8" from the floor, A few years ago I poked a few holes in it at floor level but I don't think they let much water through. I should have cut off the lip entirely for at least 6 inches. Not sure that would have halped much since most of the damage is wet, weakened, ruined cardboard boxes that sat on the basement floor, and they'll soak up water no matter how little there is on the floor. I haven't found any other damage yet, except maybe what's in the boxes, but I've been through this before for other reasons, and there really wasn't anything else that got hurt. I just can't move the boxes now because they'll fall apart. I think I'll let them sit there until I move to a nursing home. And I do plan to trim the sump lip now, after the horse has left the barn.Oh, I read your second post and you only wanted to know the procedure.
Never mind.
Those boxes may be a great source for mold.
I didn't notice mold coming from the boxes the last time, but I did notice it where the downspout exited too close to the house. The sheet rock was wet, it was grey and black. After some time, I found out I could kill the mold with bleach, but I imagined that would turn the wall white again. After it didn't, I painted it.
Then in the laundry room behind the dresser that holds up the workbench, and which would be a pain to move or climb under, I saw some mold on the wall, probably after another leak of some sort. I never did anything about that. I think it stopped growing and died after the basement dried out. (When I don't have a leaky pipe or water heater or backed up drain (at least 8 instances of these things), my basement appears to quite dry, and even the sump pump doesn't run now that I raised the allowable water level a bit.
And I have mold somewhere else. But none of them have ever bothered me. Go figure.
That certainly would be. A story I have not yet told here, I think, about coming home to a house where the police have knocked down the front door. I was on a 2 or 3 month trip abroad and I called a neighbor to see if his son would mow my lawn. It turned out, the flippers trying to sell the house next door had mowed it, but he told me that the police had broken into my house.
The townhouse next door had been vacant for months, and finally they started trying to sell it. While they were showing it to someone, they heard my radio, which was meant to scare away burglars. Then they realized they hadn't seen me for weeks. I'd told the president of the HOA who is a friend of mine that I was going away (and I even attended an HOA board meeting while in my car) but the house next door was vacant and the house next to that had a woman who talks all the time. I don't think any of my neighbors would break in but she would tell everyone who would tell someone who would.
So they decided I might be lying inside dead and they called the police, who kicked the door open (his footprint was still on the door.)
So I planned to get back early enough to somehow get in. Got home around 3PM. Door was shut but when I pushed it open it practically fell on the floor. Two of the 3 hinges were no longer attached to the jamb. Had to jump my car battery, buy longer screws at the hardware store, and I got it fixed up pretty good in an hour or two, by myself.
There was a police notice on the patio, that had been rained on so much I couldn't read the phone number or the case number. I'm sure the policeman was proud of his kicking ability, and they did squeeze the door back into its frame before they left.
A very well insulated hot water store will lose about 1kW/day. It might well be pennies to you, although:
1) It's still waste, and some people simply don't like waste, and will avoid it whenver they can. The personal financial loss is often immaterial; 2) If the saving are scaled to, say, a nation state - that is, every household does it - the financial and environmental savings are huge.
This is incomeplete. The air may have warmed up in 2 hours, but everyting else is still colder, like the furniture, the walls, the studs in the walls, the floors, the ceilings, the metal appliances, the air in the closet, the clethes you left behind, everything, and that will make the furnace run more, but i can't say how much longer.
Despite all this, the house radiated and convected a lot less heat when it was 20 or 30 degrees cooler**, and I wasn't wrong about that, only about how long it takes to fully warm the house and its contents.
**Or maybe even 40 or 50 degrees cooler. That's why I drain my pipes, in case it goes below 32. It was't nearly that cold when I got home the last time, but maybe it had been colder inside than then and warmed up when it got warmer out.
Not so fast, Eddie.
Hot is relative, there is no official defined range. If the water comes out warmer than it goes in, it could be considered a hot water heater.
But, is there a loss? The rate of heat loss is on a curve and does slow down as the differential decreases toward ambient. After a period of time the water temperature has gone down, but when you want to take a shower, you have to bring it back up to temperature. What is the cost of bringing up the entire 40 gallons versus maintaning it for that period?
If you are talking about a couple of months, sure, turn it off. A week? Negligible.
No, it is a water heater. It made the water hot. That is the purpose of it.
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