Turn that Heater down!

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 1^st, 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!