My house is heated with oil burning baseboard hot water
(natural gas is not an option where I live right now), but my house is built to
take advantage of passive solar, and that enables us to turn off the boiler for
about 6 months out of the year (provided we don’t have tax day and too much
snow holding up our spring). We are usually able to turn off the boiler on
about May 1st, but it doesn’t look like we will make that this
year. Not unless it warms up a great
deal and stays that way! It enables us
to turn off the boiler, but it has necessitated us having electric hot water so
that we have hot water year around. I
know there are some options for having it split and run the hot water as well
but they are both about the same cost right now (oil vs. electric) and what it
would cost us to upgrade in that way doesn’t make sense.
We are also examining some renewable (free) options as well
but those will take some time and some savings, so until then we turn off the
boiler and we turn down the hot water.
A great number of people have their hot water heaters turned
up on high (120 to 160 degrees) and really no one uses the water at that
temperature. If you have someone who
requires an extreme heat wash on the clothing and bedding, etc., that might
make sense, but what you are really doing is heating 10-50 degrees of water
that you will never use. It is literally
money down the drain! It works this way
for gas, oil or electric! Turn it down
to about 110 degrees – we have ours at about 90 since one of our nephews was
burned badly with hot water in the tub. It
doesn’t make any difference in the amount of hot water you have or how long it
lasts when you are using it. A 50 gallon
hot water heater is exactly that – 50 gallons of hot water. If you heat that 50 gallons to 120 degrees,
you don’t have any more hot water than 50 gallons, you have heated it up hotter
but that just means that you have to add cold water to be able to use it to
bathe or do dishes, etc.
Now, don’t feel bad if you have been paying to heat that
extra – and it does cost you – I didn’t figure it out for a few years and until
I took an efficient energy class at the local college! But, once I learned the lesson and realized
the temperature difference didn’t mean I had more hot water, I saved about
$30.00 per month by not heating that extra 40 degrees (we always had it set at
about 130). Turn it down for
$30.00? You bet I will!
You can be skeptical.
I was too! But try it for two
months and I bet you won’t go back to either that temperature or that
expenditure. Just try it!
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