[Ryland]

Gas water heaters with power vents often require that the vent be on before the gas is turned on, so a cheap $15 lamp timer works or spend a little more on a 7 day timer.
I figure I was saving $15 or so per month having a timer on my electric water heater, I had it so it came on for an hour and turned off right before most of us woke up then came on again in the after noon right before anyone came home, it was just a 24 hour timer and not a 7 day, but it worked great, now I have a gas water heater that is only costing me $3 per month to run so I'm a little slow to spend money on putting a timer on it.

I have to wonder tho, why have the water heater come on at all on week days? and if you are having it come on, why only for one minute, why not 10? at 12 cents per kwh that would be $1.80 per month, so sure 1 minute would be 18 cents... but it would hardly get the water warm, my thought is, if someone is coming in in the middle of the week to clean up, or to cook dinner for a public meeting or something else, don't you want hot water then? having it come on at 3am is of course pointless.
I've also thought about having one of these super small tank water heaters turned up to 120F and having a regular 40 gallon tank set at say 80 or 90F so that instead of heating the water up from 50F to 120 it's only heating it up from just above room temp, there for the heat loss from the large tank would be almost nothing and the small tank would have less water to heat up and would not have to put as much energy in it.