Hot Water Savings

Recently it seems the economic news doesn't change much on a day-to-day basis. I "check in" each morning, and generally read articles telling me that the price of oil is going up and the value of the dollar is headed down. This is definitely not good news for our family's budget.

If your budget is like ours, it may be stretched a little too tight for comfort just now. Although our family has pared back on non essential spending, we're feeling the pinch. For us, it was time to take an even harder look at the essentials. Was there room for reducing some of those expenses, too?

One day while working in the kitchen, it struck me. We were already using a lower setting for the temperature on our hot water, but it seemed a shame to have hot water ready 'round the clock when it often wasn't needed. From bouts with power outages I knew that hot water tanks do a good job of keeping hot water warm for a few hours without power. Was there a way I could predict the rhythm of our family's hot water useage, and have warm water on hand and ready for use, but only when we needed it?

I decided it was time to try. Obviously, our family wasn't using hot water, say, at 3:00 a.m. So, I began turning off the power to the tank after the last shower was taken each night. With the next month's bill, I saw about a $10.00 reduction in our electricity usage. I was excited. (As a stay at home mom, I'm inspired by the notion that money saved is as good as money earned, and I'd just found another way to "earn" a noticeable about of money!)

This was a good beginning, but I wasn't finished yet. Our home includes a college student who commutes to school. She actually runs three different schedules throughout the week. Now, I wasn't interested in flipping switches like a mad woman, based on who's coming and going, and what day of the week it happened to be. But I was interested in finding a general routine that rarely inconvenienced anyone, but also managed to save our busy family of six a little money. With a little effort, I got a feel for how long our tank keeps water comfortably warm, and how long it takes a full tank of cold water to heat up.

With a little experimenting I found a way to switch on the power to the tank (I switch it on at the breaker box) only once each day for a few hours, and yet keep everyone pretty happy. This produced a regular savings of more than $20.00 on our electric bill each month. It may not sound like much, but for us, it was definitely worth the effort.

The good thing is, now that I have it all figured out, I don't have to keep shutting the power off to the hot water tank at all. Our local home improvement store carries a timer for just this purpose. All I have to do is set it to automatically turn on the tank at the appropriate time each day. That's one less thing for me to remember!