Ahh, gotcha. Same fuel is same cost.

So SHE decided to take a hiflo shower that lasted 20 before I got home from work. After that, I wrapped the water heater and installed the loflo Niagara head. The hot water didn't stand a chance. Lesson learned. I'm adding another hour or heating aroumd when I get home from work.

My run to the dishwasher is not particularly long but it still takes a good half gallon before it starts to get warm water to the tap or to the dishwasher. I used to run the hot water until it got hot and then power up the dishwasher but I stopped doing that and let the dishwasher heat the water. My dishwasher is a mid 2000's energy star model and I've clocked it using 6 gallons of water during the whole wash cycle. It doesn't heat the 10 minute "pre-wash" cycle or the rinse cycle but the main wash cycle, the one that lasts for over an hour(maybe even almost 2) heats the water.

If I use the light cycle on my dishwasher it won't heat the water at all. I preferred this setting in the summer but in prior years my winter house temperature is far too cold to heat up the dishes and the air in the dishwasher using that cycle, I literally put my hand in there and the water was barely over lukewarm.

I don't heat my hot water tank hotter than I need to for a comfortable shower and getting sick is far more expensive than heating a single digit number of gallons of water to a slightly higher temperature so I let the dishwasher do the job with whatever its internal thermostat is set to. It uses less than 2kwh including the water heating and the pumping with a normal wash cycle with water heating on and heated dry. If the difference is a single kwh, I think its worth it.

Nice install, good photos & write up. A good way to minimize standing heat loss.

But, I add this digression as an option...

I put in a tankless gas demand water heater about 15 years ago and it has proven itself to be very reliable & inexpensive.

Modern storage DWH have gotten much better since I got my tankless. But I have come to understand that frequency of use can shift the comparative cost-of-ownership one way or the other.

For me, living solo, my flash heater can't be beat, as the usage pattern is dominated by long periods of inactivity, when the tankless uses and loses no energy. The fact that tankless supplies unlimited hot water is no advantage to me.

When I was a family guy, and hot water demand was frequent and relentless, the economics would have made demand heating more difficult to justify, leaving limitless hot water supply the only advantage.

-AC

So six months (almost to the day) later...
The bad: We did have an "off" switcher come undone and slide around making it stay on all day.
The good:"I like it, I mean I can't take a superlong shower..."- the lady. That is what I like to hear.
I haven't analyzed the power bill either to know the savings as other changed have been made and we don't have a years worth of baseline.

Almost 4 years to the day and things have been great. Aside from a couple switchers falling off the clock, it's worked good. Except for last week... The rotating clock piece "locked" up and I started looking for replacements. Then I grabbed the face and I couldn't adjust it. I then twisted it to free it and then it's worked ever since.
One of these days I want to drill holes where my settings are so the switchers have a more solid placement.