" :
:
: Hi,
: I always had two gas heater in series. But have no experience with
: gas-electric combo. I'd think they'll have different recovery rate.
: Tony
:
:I agree, I suspect that the 3800 watt, single element, el-cheapo electric
:water heater recovers pretty slow. Compared to the 30K BTU NG heater...
:another reason I put them in series.
:Craig
:
What I don't understand is setting them at the same temperature. If you
are going to do that I'd think you'd have the gas one before the
electric one and set the electric one's thermostat a little higher than
the gas. Then the gas one will do most of the work (which is what you
want). IOW, if you want 125 degree water, set the gas one to 110 or 115
and the electric to 125.

Dan

Well, I've been down this road too. In fact for a while I ran the gas
heater (which is the first in the series) at about 115 degrees and the
electric at 120. My thinking was that the gas one would do "most" of the
heating and the electric could kick it up that last 5 degrees. In this
manner the standby heat loss from the gas heater would be as low as possible
because the water is only at about 115. The new heater I suspect has the
better insulation and so I would be wasting less energy keeping it at 120.
But, now I'm not so sure... perhaps it is better to run the gas heater at
say 130 and in so doing try to prevent the electric one from even turning on
under normal loads and only run during times of heavy demand. But that
would increase my standby loss in the gas heater which means it starts
costing more. The question is, (taking into consideration the standby
losses from both water heaters) is it cheaper to run the gas at 115 and let
the electric one raise it to 120 OR is it cheaper to run the gas at 125-130
and try to prevent the electric one from running at all? I realize that
they both will run from time to time as a result of the standby losses...
While I'm thinking about it, is there a way for me to track how much the
electric heater runs? I need like a 240 volt clock that I can hook to the
terminals on the heating element or perhaps some sort of inline meter (much
like the utility company uses). I figure with something like that I can
just "tweak" my settings from weak to weak until I find a combination that
runs the electric heater as seldom as possible.

Craig