On demand water heaters...

We had a company come out yesterday to give an estimate on installing an on demand water heater. This is something I have wanted for a long time and it seemed the right time to investigate it now..

Very nice guy (owner) and his sidekick took a look around and then sat us down and here is what they said.

Since we have an all-electric house, the only heater he would install is a Bosch, but he is not keen on the electric units because he didnt feel they were as efficient as the gas ones. Said they heat 3 gal./ minute...that our ground water (in summer) comes into the house at about 75-80 degrees already ....Said if this were his place, he would install a timer that we could set to turn off at night and back on in the morning. the water heater only loses about 2 degrees of heat per hour so wouldnt be that much to heat back up in the morning. Also said the savings would be comparable as the on demand system.....about 25-30% on energy bill.

So, we decided to do the timer thing, if it does not work out as well we can always go back to the on demand unit. The timer cost a little over $40, the unit would have been $1300, installed, plus a little more to have an extra 220 line wired in.

I appreciated what he told us, I especially appreciated his honesty, and all the info he gave us. Thought there might be some of you out there that would also like to consider this idea..Since we are just the 2 of us, we dont use that much hot water. I just hated to think how much that water heater had to work to keep that water hot while waiting on us to need it.

Not sure if this is the right forum, but I hope all this will help others if you are looking for a way to reduce your energy costs.

Kris