Quote:
Originally Posted by bikin' Ed
It will soon be time to replace my gas water heater. It is a 40 gal. natural gas unit. It in in the basement almost directly under the kitchen sink. Short run low heat loss. The two baths are directly over/under one another, but it is quite a bit long run, thus higher heat loss. And the water must be run for some time to get a comforatable shower temp.
My thought is to downsize the main heater to 25 or 30 gallons, and add a five gallon heater in the hot water line just befor the baths. I'm thinking that this should give me almost instant hot water at the shower--saving water.
And when not being used, I'll only be keeping 30 or 35 gallons warm--perhaps saving energy.
The main unit will again be nat. gas, but the 5 gal. unit will need to be electric. Rate wise neither is fuel is priced out of line, though I know gas will be a bit more efficient. Both new units would be as high efficiency as I can afford.
So gurus of the btu, would it be worth the extra expense of two heaters and the extra work of replumbing and running electric. I'm pretty sure the new set up would be ecologically better, but my selfish desire is to save money in the long run  . So what you??  |
I was thinking about the same setup. Small electric WH can fit under sink. I don't think you should downsize your main WH unless you feel like it is already too big for your needs. Also you should set thermostat in your electric unit lower then your main unit. In this case it will serve only as small storage and not HWT. As soon as you open your tap you will get hot water right away and soon slightly warmer water will come and replace water in your electric unit so it will just keep it warm. It might take some time to adjust 2 units to run efficient.