Electrical Update, "kilowatt-hours charged"

[blume357]

Last month I posted about my electrical bill and specifically the power company (Duke energy) keeps claiming what an 'efficient' home uses compared to mine and even breaking down how the electricity is used.. they claimed I was using $31 to heat water.
Well a couple years ago I bought these independent meters you can hook up in line to something and it will show the various electrical numbers including the total KWH used over time... it's been one month to the day I hooked them both up... One to the 4 gallon electric H2O heater under the kitchen sink that I have plumbed inline to the on demand gas one that I also put a meter on the electrical side.
Here are the results:
The 4 gallon unit cost me over the last month: $5.07
The on demand gas one used: 38 cents worth of electricity.
(it's actually a small unit only burns 160K btus per hour* ... I need to figure out a way to see how much it is costing us in gas now)

I installed the small one for the kitchen because my wife was complaining about it taking about a minute to get hot water to the kitchen sink. That $5 a month is surely worth it, believe me, to have one less complaint to listen to.

*Most of the on demand units I see at folks houses are over 190 or even 200K btus..., that is burning a lot of gas by the way... the average gas furnace burns like 80k.... So, I actually am wondering how much money or gas one of these actually saves..

Oh, and I think I've figure out a way to determine how much the on demand hot water unit cost me a month in gas... I'm going to turn off all the other gas appliances in the house and run just it for like 15 minutes and determine the amount of electricity it uses over that time as well as the amount of gas looking at the meter outside and then I can interpolate using the total electricity used over a month to determine the amount of gas used.

 

[Mobuck]

Interesting timing of this post. I've been contemplating adding a small electric 'in-line' heater near the bathroom which as mentioned, takes 1-2 minutes to receive hot water from the current heater. No requirement to heat large volumes of water--just the first gallon or two until hot water arrives from the 40 gallon water heater in the opposite corner of the basement.
It seems there's two options: a 1-4 gallon tank unit or a 'tankless' version. Logically, the tank type would be 'heating' constantly vs the tankless 'on demand' type???

 

[peachhead]

I have a gas tankless, that's the only water heater we use.

 

[MaxMan]

Interesting stuff. Any details on the equipment to be used?

 

[blume357]

Was discussing these on demand gas units with my neighbor yesterday who is a semi-retired contractor and he was saying many folks who get the them don't like the wait time for hot water and so they put in a circulating pump so the water is hot instantly... I'm trying to wrap my head around the efficiency of a circulating pump on any water heater, on demand or a tank one.. seems that either would be using extra power to a dissadvantage... especially the on demand ones.. I presume they don't circulate constantly just enough to keep the lines kind of hot?

 

[krw]

Was discussing these on demand gas units with my neighbor yesterday who is a semi-retired contractor and he was saying many folks who get the them don't like the wait time for hot water and so they put in a circulating pump so the water is hot instantly... I'm trying to wrap my head around the efficiency of a circulating pump on any water heater, on demand or a tank one.. seems that either would be using extra power to a dissadvantage... especially the on demand ones.. I presume they don't circulate constantly just enough to keep the lines kind of hot?

People that have these are not worried about efficiency

 

[GypsmJim]

Our house was custom built in 1988. It was designed with all of the "required" insulation at the time. The windows are high efficiency. The attic has 12" of insulation. The gas and electric companies both give us reports on how efficient we are. In our neighborhood the houses range from about 1975 to 2020, so we are about in the middle. Every report shows that we are among the most efficient around.

Obviously, a good house is necessary, but it's how you live that is equally important. The worst offenders are the people that just don't think. My up brining has helped immensely....

1. Turn the stupid lights off when not in the room.
2. Use high efficiency bulbs.
3. Set Tstat at 68-70 during the day, and 60 at night. (if you work all day the day should be 60 as well)
4. Set the Water Heater at no more than 120 F.
5. For gosh sakes, if your car is in the garage, DON'T open the garage door and start the car for 15 minutes to warm it up (your fanny is not that sensitive)
6. Service the furnace annually.
7. If you have a basement, hang up some of the laundry rather than wasting gas in a dryer.
8. Don't run the dishwasher until its full.

Many more common sense things but that's all I can think of right now.