Water Heater Help
 

I recently changed the water heater in my house. My heater was 13 years old and began to leak, costing me money ...

A couple funny things though ... The old heater had the energy rating sticker on it still and compared to the new one I bought, it uses less energy than the new one. How was this possible?

ANyhow, to late now. I have the new heater on a timer to avoid running at all times of the day. Their are 2 adults and one baby in the house, which equates to 3 showers a day and 1 bath a day, duration no more than 10 minutes each.

How should I set me timer? How long does it take a heater to heat up new water? I will be shutting it down during peak power times, but how long should I let it run to warm the water that was used in the showers?

Thanks ..

Good question. I assume you are on electric, from your comment about having it on a timer. Maybe the energystar assumptions include different electrical rates, or over the years they changed the assumption of how much hot water people used? Like the EPA's new fuel economy ratings?
Why not a tankless water heater? :)

Tankless was an option except this is a 2 story townhome and each heater requires 60amp breakers. The current home was not wired for it and running the cables would have been cost prohibitive. It will be the answer to any future home I buy new or move into as a permanent residence.

I think you will just have to experiment to find your optimal times.

I experimented with my gas water heater- too bad I can't put that on a timer. So I put a water heater blanket on it varied the temp setting. Dropped it lower and lower until I felt the showers just didn't feel good anymore, then bumped it up a teensy bit.

Do you still have the old tank? You didn't mention whether the elements failed or the tank itself blew out...if the Tank is is in good shape you can make a nice Solar Heater to boost your new one.

If the Tank rusted out, keep it anyway and make a Kick-ass Woodstove out of it! You'll need to cut it a little anyway, so a small hole or two won't matter.

Here's some Water Heater info:

Solar Water Heating Projects and Plans

And a Water Heater Woodstove:

The Amazing $500 Wood-burning Stove ... That You Can Build for $35 (or Less!)

I think it takes around 30-40 minutes for most hot water heaters, the main thing I try to avoid is running our hot water heater between 11pm and 5:30am as we don't need hot water after 2am alot of the time and according to my room mate who took a 4am shower the other day "it was still nice, not scalding hot but nice" after 5 hour of being off, and it's set low enough that I can stand a shower with just the hot water on. so I know it's not to hot either.
If I had more tabs to turn ours on and off I would have it run from 5am til 7am and from 3pm till 6pm and maybe again at 10pm to 11pm as we still live in a state that allows smoking in bars, and the best live music is in bars.

The old unit was toast, the tank was leaking and apparently the elements were failing or I was running just with one, because the difference in the water temps now is incredible.

For example before I would set my shower dial to the 10 o'clock position for a comfortable shower. Now with the new heater I have it set at 2 o'clock to get the same amount of hot water, which is considerably less.


BTW I learned yesterday that my water heater uses more energy than my a/c. I learned this through FPL.com, my local power company.

Not surprising, when you consider the mass of a cubic meter of water is about 850 time the mass of a cubic meter of air.

Has anyone thought about building a two stage control for an electric water heater? My idea is to use contactors (with internal interlocks) to select between 240v and 120v (hot to hot or hot to neutral). An electronic temperature probe will be used to measure the actual temperature of the water and a flow sensor (could just be another temperature sensor on the outlet pipe) to determine when hot water is actually used.

A microcontroller can then be used to select between full power, 1/4 power, or no power. One way to control it would be:
* During night or when away, completely off.
* Otherwise, 1/4 power as necessary to maintain temperature.
* When in use, switch to full power.

The contactors will be mechanically interlocked as closing both would result in a short circuit. The existing thermostat, set to something like 140F (well above the intended setting), would be the safety control.

it sounds like you might have the thermostat set higher then you need it if you are able to turn your hot water down on your shower, turning that temp down will save money as it's not getting as hot, it will also protect your kid from getting burned by to hot of water.
there are alot of water heater timers out there, mine runs on a 24 hour program so it treats every day of the week exactly the same, there are 7 day timers that let you change the heating times each day of the week, the most expensive timer I've seen has a temp sensor on the water heater and so it over rides the stock thermostat and lets it simply be a back up, that timer I think can both be programed and appeared to be self learning to throttle back by learning your use patterns.

How much is that smart control? Does it use contactors or is it solid state? Contactors are actually more efficient than triac or SCR solid state but require maintenance. MOSFET solid state control can have efficiency comparable to that of a contactor and also allow for PWM control, but I don't think any products on the market use that.

I think a DIY solution might be the way to go.The contactors themselves are cheap and so are the other parts. And by basing it around an open source platform like the Arduino, the users can customize it to their needs.

Yes, the thermostat is set high so it acts as a safety control. It will never switch off if everything's working right as the microcontroller will stop it from going above a setpoint.

My gas water heater lives in the basement and I've often thought of putting a lever on the temp knob and running a string up into the bathroom so I can give it a tug oh, 20 min before a shower and leave it pretty cool the rest of the time. Showers are all I really care to have nice hot water for. Yeah tankless but they're kinda spendy.

How about putting a servo on the knob? does your water heater have a forced exhaust fan? if it does putting a timer on that fan that keeps it from turning on will keep the water heater from turning on.

No forced exhaust. Nothing electric at all.

A servo or solonoid system would be nice. A string with a few pulleys might do the job too. Do you have a hardware suggestion? I just need to "kick it on" a bit before I use the hot water.

I've ended up on the "vacation" setting as my permanent setting! But timing affects the quality of a hot shower here. There must be a sizeable spread between the lo and hi limits on my water heater's control. If I happen to want the hot water right after it's been through a heating cycle bam! it's more than hot enough. But if I want that hot water at the tail end of the water heater's "resting cycle" it's marginal.

I've noticed this as well. I shower with the knob set at Hot only, and have a small amount of flow coming through my low flow showerhead. Sometimes it feels a bit lukewarm, and sometimes I feel like it's burning me.
I like your idea of the pulleys and string, hope to see details if you do it.

On another note, does anyone on here have one of the shower manifolds (control valves) that does not allow temp control? For instance, you turn it on low and it's cold, then crank it up to max flow for hot?
My home had one when we moved in - well worth buying/installing the new one - it was not possible to get hot enough water with the other one - always blended hot with a percentage of cold...

How's this for a biatch ... last week I came home to a floor soaked in water. After exhaustive tracing I realized it was the NEW water heater. None of my fitting were leaking, nor was the tank leaking from the bottom. Once I open the service panel, I hit in the head with warm water. It was leaking from behind the thermostat control on the top panel ... grrr

Dam thing was less than 3 months old and failed ...

Now after replacing for the 3rd time I can report that it takes 20 minutes for the water to heat up to shower temperature. SO when working properly, which it now is, these things are a marvel ...