Which is more economical - electric or natural gas water heater?

When all taxes and other charges are factored in, I pay:

10.62 cents per kWh for electricity

50.46 cents per cubic meter (1.43 cents per cubic foot) for natural gas.

These are in CDN dollars (which is irrelevant since I am quoting both forms of energy with the same currency but in case you're interested the conversion between USA/CAN is about 1.16 CDN per 1 USD).

Given the above costs, what will be a more economical hot water heater

- electric or gas? (This is assuming I buy a tank, not rent it from my local utility, and this also is just looking at the monthly energy consumption of the tank - not the initial cost to purchase and install).

I assume that both types will be equal when it comes to insulation (or rate of heat loss) but perhaps not identical when it comes to potential for problems (since a gas heater needs a void or space running through the center, which means it has a more complex contruction, as a pressure-vessel there are more seams that can ruputure or leak).

I notice that new electric hot water tanks are almost half the cost of a similar-sized NG tank (ie advantage=electric on initial purchase price). An electric tank is also more "controllable" - I can more easily control it in terms of powering it for time-of-day and day-of-week operation.

So I think conceptually that electric hot water tanks are a better way to go. But for long-term energy usage assuming the costs quoted above (or more importantly their ratio) holds into the future - which type will be cheaper to run?

Reply to
Some Guy
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Everyone has posted some good information for you so far (save one).

I'll just add that there are a couple of more factors to think about.

A natural draft gas heater (one that uses a chimney) can operate just fine even without electricity in case the power goes out.

A forced draft gas heater (one that vents thru the wall and has a blower) needs electricity to run at all. But you can plug them into a cheap 120V 'lamp timer' to 'program' it to run only when you want.

But programming won't really cut down on your losses unless you're gone for several days, in which case you could just shut it off (or turn to 'pilot' only to save having to relight the pilot when you return). The one exception is if you have TOU (time of use) electric like John from Minnesota has, where the cost of running it at night is a great savings.

Because gas heaters have a fire tube that runs up through the middle, they have more standby losses than electric.

Insulate the vertical piping right above the heater (both the hot and cold) to help reduce losses by convection when no water is being drawn off.

Consider getting a waste-water heat recovery heat exchanger to avoid sending all the energy 'down the drain' after use. (google 'GFX heat exchanger' for an example)

daestrom

Reply to
daestrom

Your electric utility uses natural gas to generate electricty then charges you for the privilege.

If you had to buy your NG at the green-grocer and bring it home in a paper bag, NG would STILL be cheaper at heating water.

Reply to
HeyBub

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77 deg. F. rise, 3-5 gpm.

Of course you have to get the big one to run 2 showers (@2.5gpm) but it is possible. And the M-1 can be chained together up to 20-deep for large flow capacity.

-frank

Reply to
Frank Cusack

And 20 of them would cost ... ?

Reply to
CJT

We have one of the large NG Rinnai on demand water heaters.Our H2O supply from the street comes in at 50-70F depending on the time of the year. We have never had any low flow issues and it costs very little to operate.

We did a couple of extra things to help minimize the amount of hot water that we use, which we would have done anyway, regardless of our choice to use a tankless hot water heater:

  1. We installed a grey water heat recovery device, (basically a decent percentage of the heat from the water going bathtub drain is transferred to the cold water supply feeding the showe/bath)
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    This was really simple and and not too expensive to do. The devices are readily available.It seems only natural after expending all that energy to heat the water, to want to hold onto the heat for longer than 2 seconds (if taking a shower)

  1. We replaced our antiquated washer with a horizontal axis machine that only uses 15 gallons of water per wash as oppossed to 60. I hate to state the obvious, but if you don't already have a low flow shower head, now would be a great time to get one. Obviously, the less water you use, the less water you have to heat, no matter what the heating costs are.

After all is said and done, it will take some time to recover the expense of your upgrade no matter how you go. Beside the cost, I would encourage you to consider just how much you can cut your carbon emmisions if you go with a tankless unit (or even a storage unit on a timer). It makes absolutely no sense to have water being kept at

120-140F whilst you are asleep, at work or on vacation. Best of luck, Mary.
Reply to
mulderig

A somewhat related question: I am in Peco's Philly area, with electri rates near 12c/kwh, I believe. However I have and use the Rate time rate for all evening uses. I pay double during peak for all uses It is almost better as a disincentive to use elec than any rea savings, in my opinion My question is Can someone help me figure out how much it costs t heat up the (cringe) spa from 70 degrees F to 95' ? This would o course be only at the off peak rate. Just take it as 500 gals x 2. pounds per gal. 1100 lbs.

Part 2 would be what does it cost to run the 11.5 hp pump system. I

usually gets run 1 hour, sometimes only 1x/ week. The heatup is onl needed in the real winter months, otherwise it holds the heat ver well. I hope to an an enclosure to reduce this loss. We don't use i often. I'll do the math If I can find the formulas or factors. Thanks M

Reply to
Eye144

Where do you get light water? Our's weighs one hell of a lot more than that.

Holy Crap, an 11.5 HP motor needs a huge electrical supply. Most are three phase at that power.

Based on your figures above, you can't do the math. Start over with the right numbers.

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

It isn't one motor. It is a system. This is a 220v spa. There are three pumps. One for air, 1.5hp, 2 each 5hp. I guess i really don't want to know. I've had it since Nov a year ago. Haven't really noticed a difference in bills.

Reply to
Eye144

Notice you changed it to plain text like a good little boy, and all he was telling you was basic Usenet policy, thats been around longer than you knew what Road Runner was.

I mean, since all you pissy bitches wanna get the group back on track, follow standard posting practice and set an example....like, not posting your bullshit HTML.

Reply to
CBHVAC

I have been around usenet before you knew what a keyboard was and outlook is not set to post html and it never was. So if this happened it was not my doing or anything within my control. as they say... Shit happens.

Reply to
Drums

Perhaps because you replied to someone (Jim Baber) that had originally posted in HTML? It is quite a pain to reply to those that use HTML as many facets of newsreaders get messed up. For example, the common practice of indenting previous posters with a '>' or some character to help separate out each persons writing often quites and gets muddled when replying to HTML posters.

Quite a pain.

daestrom

Reply to
daestrom

That's possible but I don't recall seing anything other then plain text.

Reply to
Drums

If you're using OE (as I am), I only 'see' the plain text in Jim Baber's post too. But the little icon in the upper corner shows an attachment, and that is the HTML version.

So to recognize when someone has posted in HTML, I look for the attachement icon (paperclip in OE). I don't open such attachments (I'm paranoid about virii), but it tells me there is some HTML related.

Even today, when I go back and highlight Jim's message, and your first reply, they show this 'attachment' icon and that there is some xxx.HTM file attached.

daestrom

Reply to
daestrom

I doubt that seriously...

But then, I doubt seriously if someone said Q-Link you would know what that was...or.... Fidonet ARPANET USENIX...

Ya aint been on Usenet before 1980....and I doubt seriously you are older than 19 by your posting here.

Yawn..as boring as a Bourne Shell.....

Reply to
CBHVAC

FidoNET. :) Talk about a blast from the past. Many moons ago I ran a BBS on an Atari ST. Hooked it into FidoNET. I don't even recall what software I used to do that now, but it wasn't very user friendly. :) What a pain in the butt. Then went to running a BBS on a PC with WildCat. MUCH easier. Multi-node with DesQview.

I haven't been >

Reply to
Steve Scott

Who cares what you doubt. Ooooh what are you, a heating tech? That's about a step above a plumber. ;o)

Reply to
Drums

It was exciting pluging that old handset into the ear muffs at 300 baud and playing text based computer golf.

moons ago I ran

don't even recall

very user friendly.

BBS on a PC with

around?

you would know what that

Reply to
SolarFlare

Actually, I own the company...I hire 19 year old 2nd year techs smarter than you...most can actually admit they are wrong. You care bubba..you replied.

Tell ya what, make fun of plumbers all ya want, but tell that to the one down the road that just bought for Christmas, for his entire family, each..(2 sons, 1 daughter, wife, and stepson) each a new Viper. Not a big deal..no...but lets see..did you go drop almost $250,000 on your wife let alone your entire family this season?

Flame on...the wife and I are going on our vacation this week...I wont have time for your antics..Palm Springs is callin...

Oh...last thought...read up on those things we were using before you were born...those things you cant comment on..deal with it youngin.

Reply to
CBHVAC

The last post to the Fidonet newsletter was on 1-13-03...

Got a few BBS nodes running around...trick is finding them. Most of the old ones are long gone and shut down about the same time that the Fidonet newsletter died. Sites still up, but good luck finding much past 03.

CFN, DFN and the others that link to a few nodes are up and running, and most of the old MUSE and MUCKs are still around someplace. WindsMARE was being ran from a buddy of mines server in Cleveland for a long time with permission from MIT. Barry Kort was allowing some of the code to be ran from Devs system...not all, but some, and micro still exists, with Barry running it.

NOI and I used to kill hours on microMUSE, but when things got out of hand on there, Barry changed the format and it more or less died. Ill still telnet in from time to time to talk to him, and see whats going on personally in his life, but other than that...nada.

Reply to
CBHVAC

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