hello all. long time no diary. today i took the final step in what has been a long time coming: finishing installation of an electric instant on whole house hot water heater...
as most of us know, hot water heaters are a major consumer of electricty or natural gas. my electric hot water heater is oldish and works fine, but i have been always fascinated by the concept of an instant on hot water heater.
i am a single parent with 2 kids who are with me half the time and i have an out of town girlfriend so my hot water heater sits around heating and letting water cool, sometimes for days at a time. with an instant on hot water heater the water would be only heated when i needed it, thereby saving lots of energy over time.
and so i bought one at home depot or some such place at a discount (400.00 bucks) but a good brand (Bosch) and size (AE125.) next i had to find someone to install it; after screwing around for while i found a good plumber (250.00 for parts and service) and a good electrician (prob another 250.00 as he had to install 3 seperate 100amp lines to power this baby)
so now we are in 900 dollars. there may be some sort of tax breaks i don't know for sure. but i used 1140 kw of electricity last month for a bill of 136.00. can i shave 20.00 off per month? if so it will pay for inself in about 4 years. also as long as i don't run too many things at once i can't run our of hot water (which is a winner as my kids get older) and unstated but a given is the beneficial environmental impact. (my dream some day is a few windmills plus an electric car but that is a story for another day)
anyway so tonight i used the last water from the old hot water tank (because i have a well i will run my freezing water into it to take the edge off the temp but i have the power to it off)and ran a tap wide open. hotter water than i could touch.
i realize people don't have money laying around these days and that these things are more expensive than a regular tank, but it seems like a no brainer to either mandate installation on all new housing units or give massive tax breaks to make them relatively cheap so people will replace their regular tank when it goes bad. I wonder if the stimulus package has anything about these in them; this product was made in vermont by the bosch water heating company.
i will let the folks here know how and if any savings line up.