11/20/08

Did you know that heating water can consume as much as 25% of your home’s overall energy consumption level? It doesn’t have to!

Boiling It All Down  – Some easy,  common sense things you can do to reduce your hot water costs !

* Insulate your hot water pipes and the tank of your water heater.

* Lower the temperature on your water heater.

* Install such energy saving devices as a drain-water heat recovery system and heat traps for your water heater.

* Use less hot water – duh!

You may also want to see if there exists perhaps a more efficient model of water heater out there which will increase efficiency enough to warrant the cost and time it will take to recoup and become a cost-saving device.

Solar Water Heaters (or washing on the sun!)

When my wife and I visited Greece (insert your childish snickers here…), we kept noticing these large panels on the roofs which appeared very similar to solar panels. On our last day’s stay at our hotel, I couldn’t resist any longer, so I actually climbed up to take a closer look, trying not to bust my ass since there had been recent rainfall and everything was wet and slick, and discovered these panels had piping running through them and were actually the method they used to heat water! I was absolutely amazed that these roof panels were able to provide enough hot water for an entire hotel and because they really weren’t anything too fancy, just some tubes running back and forth through panels with a reflective backing and a plexiglas covering, I can’t imagine them being very expensive at all.

It’s A Tankless Job But…

I have also done a bit of research on tankless water heaters which heat water instantly on demand and do not require an open flame or constant electricity to keep a resource of water heated. Some systems can be expensive and complicated while others are more simplified. The systems range according to the needs of the household so weigh the installation costs and energy savings carefully against the the time it will
take to recoup your investment.

There are also methods of using your home’s space heating system to assist in heating water in order to take some of the load off the water heater.

If you are planning to sell your home within the next few years, you will want to consider how much resale value a specialized system might add to your home’s worth in addition to how long the recouping of your investment might take.

These preceding two scenarios (tankless and space heat assistance) are ones which should be discussed with a home energy conservation expert. Seek someone neutral for advice without an agenda. People selling water heaters or environmental activists probably would not have your financial savings at the forefront of their concerns, but may still have some good information to enter into the equation. It is tough to find advice based solely on finance for such a politically-charged issue as energy saving has become, so seek a range of opinions and use your own best judgment.

All of the above are great options worth exploring further and the method best for you will depend upon your particular needs, the types of fuel available and local laws and building codes which may limit what you can do on the outside of your home aesthetically and what types of equipment are available legally.

Heating a Swimming Pool
(For those so rich, they don’t really need to save the money, but I’ll include it here anyway because it makes my article appear longer and more “in-depth”)

Probably the best ways to control heating costs for a swimming pool are to use a solar pool heater, use a pool cover after use and just plain ol’ not heating the pool at all!

What’s the matter? You a wuss? Dive in ya big chicken! Bok! Bok! Bok! Bok!

Some of the tips I have written about in this article have come from the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Energy, Efficiency and Renewable Energy” website which can be found at http://www.eere.energy.gov and most items can be delved into in much greater detail there.

Please read my main blog at http://www.letsgetahead.com for more great articles like this one!