Hot Water Heaters...

Add to that an expensive circuit board that could fail, and a plain jane, dumb tank model looks better all the time.

My neighbor runs the QC department for a large water heater manufacturer, and has runs thousands of hours of testing on different models. He tells me that tankless gas models do NOT save energy due to the rise required from cold input to hot output.....a conventional tank model with a pilot light keeps the water tepid, and requires less gas to get it up to the hot output. He says the only advantage of a tankless model is they save floor space ( hanging on a wall ) IF lack of floor space is an issue.

Hi,

If you have 4 people using 15 gallons each of hot water, and you pay 10 cents a KWH, then it should come to about $30 per month (calc below).

I've collected lots of simple solar water heaters and solar showers here: http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects...er_heating.htm

They can be really simple if you are OK with gravity feed (elevated tank) solar hot water.

Gary

Calc:
(60 gal/day)(8.33lb/gal)(120F - 60F)(1 BTU/lb-F) = 30,000 BTU/day

(30000 BTU)/(1 KWH/3412 BTU) = 8.8 KWH per day -- probably more like 10 KWH a day with standby losses.
So, about a buck a day.

My dad had a wood-fired hot water heater in our camp. Was pretty small, but just took minimal planning ahead, was in the bathroom and nicely heated that freezing room!

I think if I lived without a hot water heater I'd need a wood-fired hot tub!

Solar water heater on roof. Works alright

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I have very limited electricity while I build our house. I bought a 12 gallon 110V water heater, and just turn it on when I need it. It takes about 1 hour to get fully hot, and you get 10 minutes in the shower. I can't leave it on all the time, or I wouldn't be able to run other high-demand appliances, such as for cooking. You learn to be very conservative with water!

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Why do all you guys want to heat hot water? We only have a water heater.

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Wouldn't a "hot water maker" be a better description?

You say the property is in Main but don't say if you are off grid or not? Being on grid open up the possibility of an electric water heater. They are a bit cheaper than gas fired ones.

I have an old mobile home with a 10 gallon hot water heater. There is enough hot water for me to have a shower, wash dishes, or run a load of laundry (if the washer is set to warm wash and cold rinse) but not one right after the other. I have to plan ahead and wait a few hours for the water to get hot before I do the second task. I do love hot water and it would be one of the last things I would give up.

I have an off grid piece of property that I plan to build on. I have looked at the various ways to get hot water without electricity. A heating coil on the wood stove would probably be the most sustainable solution in a TEOTWAWKI situation. Most of the camper type, propane fired, on demand, water heaters need to have a minimum water flow to activate them and some of them can only raise the temperature of the water about 50 degrees. Do your research before you put your money down. Here is one I found. http://www.walmart.com/ip/Camp-Chef-...Specifications A propane fired standard water heater is probably the most convienent. This is what I will put in the house. To save money I plan to have a small one (less than 30 gallons) and only turn it on an hour before I need hot water. An insulation blanket around it will help keep the water hotter longer. The solar heaters only work after the sun has heated them for hours. One may be in the mix and used when I can plan the activity at the same time the water is ready.

First I lived in a little house in town, and turned off the water heater 17 yrs ago when I realized it cost $30/month for the hot water (even turning it on for just an hour or so per day), and for that $30 I could go to the YWCA.These past 2 years in an apt., I still have the heater off, and go to the gym. When desperate, I heat water on the stove. It works for me.

We only use warm/hot water for showers, everything else is cold water. You can put an insulating blanket on the heater, lower the temp or even keep the heater off until 1hr until you need it.
Though, that on demand one might work better. I know my grandma had an old system with an open flame. You turned it on and then the water, the candle size flame would heat the pipe through the little window and ta-da, hot water.

I'm living in a travel trailer with a 10 gallon water tank in it that runs off propane. It's really fuel efficient -- between cooking breakfasts and heating water for one person -- showers, dishes -- I use about ten gallons of propane a month.

Wouldn't be that hard to get a water heater out of a scrapped RV or camper (just find a junk yard or check craigs list for people parting out RVs) and hook it up if you needed an off-the-grid hot water heater. A lot of them have seen relatively little use, even in an older trailer.

I had thought about that, but when I looked at how they operate, it's a big jet of flame in a little metal cage. It made me a little worried about trying to use that in or around my plywood and lumber cabin (known locally as the firetrap).

Well, for what it's worth, I have yet to meet a travel trailer or RV that's not a rolling firetrap. I still haven't figured out how they got the sleeping arrangements of mine past any logical safety code. It doesn't have an egress point from the bedroom short of breaking a window, and the windows are safety glass. The furnace is behind the bedroom closet (in the "nose" of the fifth wheel), the gas generator is under the bedroom closet, and the propane tanks are roughly under my head where I sleep at night.

In case of a fire stemming from any of the above, there's open storage lined with probably flammable carpet under the bedroom, and eventually air vents at the bedroom door. Ten to one, if I had a fire that started in my furnace or generator, the flames would reach the living space first at the door between the bedroom and the living area ... effectively trapping me in the bedroom if I was sleeping.

I do have a healthy respect for propane's ability to find a way to leak and I've seen two propane explosions caused by leaks. If I were to jury rig in an RV heater to a cabin, I'd set it up outside and below the grade of the cabin by several feet, then pipe the hot water in to the building. Propane is heavier than air ... and insulation, in the grand scheme of things, is cheap.

I fix up a hot waster system by dragging home a dumpster heater.. I took the fancy tin jacket off the bottom and now it sets on top of a small wood stove. There is a hole cut in the top of the stove so the flame can touch the bottom.

all the rest of the heater is hooked as would of been while hooked to electric. As long as its got water in it ,and the p/r valves working ,it safe.