On Feb 4, 2:20*pm, "Bill" wrote:
"C & E" *wrote in message

I know that the answer in relative terms is 'yes', but in practical terms
can I wrap insulation around my three year old water heater and make a
noticeable difference?

An electric water heater can be 30% of your electric bill!

To get a drastic savings...

Use less hot water...
-water on for shower, then off - soap up, water back on to rinse.
-wash dishes by hand.
-wash clothes in cold water.
-get a water heater timer, hot for morning showers, warm rest of day.


Terry says he shut off his water heater in a 60F basement and went
away for a 2 week vacation and upon returning the water was STILL
TEPID. Clearly water just sitting in a water heater tank cools off
very slowly. So, how drastic of a savings do you really think you're
going to get by putting the water heater on a timer? You don't save
anything until the water cools off enough where it would have come on
anyway. From that point on, you do save, because the heat loss will
now be less than it would have been if the temp were higher. But
given that it cools very slowly, in practice you are going to save
very little, if anything.

Also, for many people, putting the water heater on a timer would be a
losing proposition and take a very long time to break even. For
example, if you can't do the work yourself and have to call an
electrician, it ain't gonna be cheap.

I'm going to do the experiment here with my water heater and measure
the water temp at night before shutting it off and again in the
morning. My prediction: It isn't going to drop very much at all.




-take fewer showers. Skip a day or two on weekends.

Get a solar water heating system which "preheats" the water.


I saw some DOE data a while back that showed solar heating of water in
the final analysis wasn't significantly cheaper than other simpler
choices like storage water heaters.