In my apartment, my breaker box is in the kitchen. 2 of us live in my apartment. When we are not taking showers or running the dishwasher we keep the Hot Water Heater breaker off. Then when one of us needs to take a shower or when we need to run the dishwasher, we turn the Hot Water Heater breaker on about 1 hour before we need hot water. LAST MONTH I SAVED ABOUT 50% ON MY ELECTRICITY BILL! I was shocked. Studies have shown that typically you will save about 25% or more. I have a brand new Water Heater that is energy efficient so maybe that is why I saved so much on my bill. I am not sure how this would work with larger households or with children, especially if you have multiple showers/bathtubs. Might be hard to coordinate with everyone but it's worth a shot.
The first couple of days I forgot to turn on the Hot Water Heater before my shower so I started to take a cold shower, then ended up getting out & waiting for hot water. But after that, we got the groove of things and now it's a routine that is easily incorporated into our daily lives.
Let me know if any of you are currently doing this or have heard of this.
If only that would work for me! I do too much laundry/bathing/dishes and general washing with hot water to make that work. (4 kids can do that to ya!)
ReplyDeleteNifty Thrifty idea!!! Unfortunately we are a household of 9 which includes 3 children :-( I will see if it helps turning it off at night though while we are asleep :-)
ReplyDeleteNifty idea but I have gas. I'll pass the idea on to my parents who do have electric water heaters. Thanks
ReplyDelete