PamsPride--question for ya!

[FarmerChick]

howdy

In another thread you mentioned the timer on your water heater.

Could you elaborate. I asked in the other thread but you must be missing the post. I am so interested. A few posters gave me advice on this before, but never having done it I am still checking into it.

How hard to install?
What hours are you off and on?
How long to re-heat the water again
Will it hurt to turn on and off???dont' know
and THE BIG Q---did it save money truly?


thanks PamsPride for the info!!

 

[PamsPride]

WORTH EVERY PENNY!!

It took my DH like an hour to install...for some reason the wires were not working for him....he knew what he was doing he just had to find the right size wires. He has some electrical knowledge but not a profressional.
We have an 80 gallon hot water heater. There are 7 of us in our house. Everything is electric.
We got the timer from Home Depot. I am pretty sure it was $40. A friend of mine has one...she swears by it too. She is on a load meter we are not.
DH gets up at 4AM to go to work so he has it set to heat up at 3AM and shut off at 5AM. The kiddos get up around 9 or so....at least two of them take a shower every morning. I am a mean mom so when they run out of hot water OH WELL!! They take SUPER long showers and will literally stay in until you yell at them to get out or the hot water runs out!!
The timer only comes with one set of timers...set to come on once set to go off once. If you want it to go on and off another time of day you have to order the little arrow things off the internet. The hot water tank is right in a closet in my bathroom so it is super easy for me to turn it on and off. I generally go flip the switch and turn it on about a half an hour before I get in the shower to go somewhere. Then I try to make sure I turn it off before I leave. We also turn it on manually when we do dishes and on Sunday morning so we ALL can get showers.
It was running up our electric bill because the two littlest kiddos are nutorious for going into the bathroom and turning on the water to wash hands, brush teeth, PLAY, for no reason at all. So our 80 gallon hot water tank would kick on 20-30 times a day when we still had plenty of hot water!!
Our electric bill went from $180 down to $110 down to $76 and that is the ONLY change we made!! We were hanging our clothes out on the line to dry but since it has been cold we have been using the dryer again all the time and the bill still went down.
It does not hurt to turn it on and off...it is just like it kicking itself on and off on its own only we do it ourselves. It will kick off when it is heated up and not being used during the 3AM-5AM hour.
The one problem that we ran into was....if your electric goes out that messes up the timer setting. DH got mad because he thought 11 yo did not flick the switch off all the way so he did not have hot water the next morning....then I turned the switch off the next night knowing that 'I' did it right....he still got mad the next morning saying it was not done right. Later that evening it dawned on him that the power had been out just long enough to make the hot water tank come on just before he got in the shower but not long enough for it to heat up. He reset the time and now it is fine.

 

[PamsPride]

Let me know if there is anything that I missed. I hope that helps.

 

[PamsPride]

This is the timer we got:
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100088282

 

[PamsPride]

DH says that you just have to make sure it the right size amp for your hot water tank.
I do NOT understand electric....so I assume he must mean they come in different size but, I don't know why because I thought that a hot water tank would pull the same amount of electric...but he says if it is a 40 gallon tank then the electric load will not pull as much.

 

[FarmerChick]

OK---I AM SO THERE....GOING TO LOWES OR HOME DEPT AND getting the correct size for my 50 gallon water heater.

your savings is amazing! and that was the only change. HOLY COW! I must do this and do it soon!

I too am line drying and use the dryer less...big time.
I changed all lights to CFLs and dropped $28 per month just in those bulbs.

SO the water heater is my next challenge and yes, I am doing it....you just confirmed what a few people said and you make it sound so simple. Tony works part time with his electrician friend who owns his own business, Marcus, and Tony knows electrical to a degree so this is definitely doable for him. He might not want to, but I will make him..HA HA....sounds like the device paid for itself very fast.

the link was good..now I know what I will be dealing with and it doesn't look hard.

THANKS so much for the info. I love to hear success stories and one that I can do and save big money also!!!

 

[PamsPride]

"He might not want to, but I will make him..HA HA"

That is EXACTLY how it was here!!! LOL!!!

We also used a Home Depot gift card we got at Giant Eagle so we got fuelperks too!!

 

[FarmerChick]

LOL you keep racking up the savings! good for you!
hey, we deserve a break don't we....bills are just skyrocketing. gotta save it somewhere.

I need hot water during the day though. So I am thinking now about how I am going to get my turn off hours.

Would 8 hrs. be a good savings do you think? Off at 7:30 at night, on a 3:30 am for work showers? that should give me some savings obviously?

 

[PamsPride]

I don't think you are going to see a big savings by having it run all day because that is peek usage time at a higher rate.
I would suggest ordering more switches and figuring out what time of day you generally need hot water and have it set for those times of day.
Our tank is easy access so we just turn it on when we need it.
If you will not use all the hot water during the day I would leave it off so it is not drawing on peak time. I think my friend said extra timer switches were like $3.

 

[FarmerChick]

my power company does not do peak time.

their gimmick is this....in summer, lower charge for the first 750 kwh per month. after 750 kwh price increases.

In winter it is reverse.....higher charge for first 750 used, lower charge for anything usage over 750 per month.


summer is AC time, so they want you lower usage and those who crank the AC and go way over that 750 per month, they pay for it.

winter is heat time....they give you 750 at a higher rate, cause they know people need heat at night, like elderly, so they cut the rate for over 750 used per month.

UGH

I can't win truly. Only thing I can do is just cut kwh anywhere I can!!