Replacing a hot water heater. Efficiency?

Gas or electric? Size of the family? Here in Douglas County, WA., where electric power is about 1.2 cents per KW hour, I would do a straight replacement in my household with the most efficient 60 gallon electric heater I could find.

I was, money in hand, ready to go tank-less, but am thinking better of it. I think the savings projected depend on an ideal situation. I lack that. If you have a situation where the runs to the taps or appliances that use the hot water are short, it might be a savings. If you are gone and the house is empty more than occupied, you might see some savings. The consensus here seems to be that it would be worn out before the pay off ever came and in the meantime you would have a noisy expensive unit that few people know how to repair, and no reserve hot water during a power outage. My plan now is to put in recirculation loops on the units I have and get instant hot water at the taps. That plan might use a tad more energy to heat the water, but should eliminate a lot of wasted water, which in my case has to be pumped.

Electric? It makes no difference as electric is 100% efficient. Just buy a good quality, standard 40- 50 gallon, or whatever fits your needs Now with gas the different heaters are too numerous to mention, but if you are looking for a 5 year payback, it ain't gonna happen! If it were me I would just go with a good quality 40 or 50 gallon natural draft heater and be done with it. It may not be the most efficient, but they are the most trust worthy as repairs go. Any thing in a water heater that requires electricity to run will most likely need repairs and there goes you payback! Plus the price for efficiency goes up fast killing any idea of a quick payback. As far as I am concerned, you ether a pay a premium for the equipment, or pay the utility, cost is about the same in the long run! Greg

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"Dave Bugg" wrote in news:h7S_g.49$vT7.25 @newsfe03.lga:

Huh?! Is that 1.2 or .12 ???

note that in a cold weather area the heater is generally indoors, so the standby losses help heat the home, thus they really arent lost except in the summer

It is 100% efficient in turning electricity into heat. It is not 100% efficient in transferring that heat to the water nor is it 100% efficient in turning fuel into heat. It just moves the point of inefficiency from a local burner to a generating plant.

A $15 motion detector might be more convenient.

Nick

I just built a new house 3 years ago and did the finish plumbing and would like to comment on recirculation water. I had a 48' run from the water heater to the shower on the other end of the house and thought it would be wise to put a pump in a loop back to the water heater. I also purchased a motion sensor switch that I put in the bathroom to turn the pump on when the room was entered that also had a manual switch on it so it could be turned off and the pump turned on manually. These are available at Lowes. I insulated the supply and return runs to the water heater. In the end I found the pump and my switch set up were un-necessary since the water would re-circulate by natural convection. I don't know what the situation would have been if I would have wanted to do it to an upstairs floor. I would have had to insulate the pipes going to upstairs walls before covering and so on. My situation was water heater in basement and shower on the opposite end of the house worked out fine. Bill T

Sun, Oct 22, 2006, 3:09pm (EDT-3) snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com (Jay=A0Pique) doth query here: I've seen some articles on retrofit recirculating systems, as well as "on-demand" hot water,

Dunno, got 'lectric myself, but my younger son does refrigeration, and he says on-demand's the smart way to go, with gas, not electric. I've used 'em oversea and was impressed, "very" nice to be able to have hot water for as long as you want to shower. Those units were a little larger than a lunch box.

JOAT It's not hard, if you get your mind right.

- Granny Weatherwax

"Dave Bugg" wrote in news:Mz1%g.1454$Dg6.502 @newsfe07.lga:

That's about as close to free as it can get. Just curious Dave, what is the primary reason?