I ended up putting the Kill-a-watt meter on to see how much power the fan draws, .27kwh for 115 hours, or what should be 1.69kwh for 30 days or about $.20 worth of electricity per month, on top of the $3 per month in natural gas, I think I can live with this.
As for rental properties, people around here at least, are willing to pay more rent if the utilities are included because otherwise you can end up paying $300 in utilities in the dead of winter on top of that months rent, but that doesn't have to be the case.
This
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Originally Posted by Varn
I have a rental duplex. I would never put in solar cells and battery pack, never heat it with wood. Just a standard duty furnace and water heater I just want it to work reliably and not get calls. My tenants just want the same. Putting in a 1500 dollar water heater or a 5000 dollar furnace means that they are going to have to pay higher rent. They will move on in a few years. Much less time than the return on the investment.
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I don't quite fallow your logic, if a tenant moves after a year or two how is that going to shorten the return on your investment on the building?
A friend of mine is in charge of a few low income rentals and they put solar electric and solar hot water on one of them and because they include utilities in the rent they are seeing a positive cash flow, same friend is the one who told me about the Vertex water heater, even their rentals that don't have solar panels are renovated with energy efficiency as the goal and again, renting to low income people, including the utilities in the rent and they are making a profit where low income rentals are often a net loss that are paid for with grants.