Looking to buy a more efficient Water Heater

[82-T/A]

Hey guys,

I'm new to the board. My water heater works perfectly fine, but to the best of my knowledge, the water heater that I have is the original one to the house (1987). FPL (Florida Power & Light) will be raising our rates 16% next month on top of the already ridiculous fees they've been charging us for hurricane repair costs. I pay on average about $160 dollars a month (factored on average between Summer and Winter months). To most of you, that may seem extremely high, but believe it or not, my power bill is substantially lower than most of my neighbors and most of my friends. The majority of the people in this neighborhood pay over $200 a month. FYI, all my lightbulbs are compact flourescent, etc etc...

Anyway, I was seriously considering going with a tankless water heater until I realized that the costs would be substantially more.

Now, considering the age of my water heater, I'm assuming that it's probably no where near as efficient as it could be. The water heater is ALSO located inside the house and every time I walk by the hallway where it's stored (behind vented doors) I can feel heat coming off of it which I'm sure affects the cooling in my home.

Looking at my unit, it says that it costs $349 per year to operate at .06 kwh.

Is that decent? Or should I consider a new water heater? If I know it will save me $100 bucks a year, I would go for it right now (I could swap it out myself too).

The thing I'm wondering is... it's probably running ALL the time considering the fact that it sits in an air conditioned space (rather than in the garage or something). Since we have solid concrete slabs (and all the piping is run through those), there's not a chance in hell that I'm going to re-locate it to the garage.

Any thoughts? What is a REALLY good, energy saving 40 gallon water heater?


Thanks!!!

Todd

 

[82-T/A]

A tankless water heater should not be giving off that much heat. We have a 75 gallon one in our home and it is not even wram to the touch on the outside.

Still not sure what we will do. Solar water heaters are so gosh darn expensive that we don't see ourselves going that route....at least not for now.

Hope that helps,
Dan

Thanks Dan, I appreciate it! I looked at your site briefly, I will definitely check it out.

Yeah, the only thing I dislike about going with the electric tankless water heater is that it's not just the cost of the unit, but the installation as well. My house was built in 87, and it appears as though it will require all new wiring, and a 50 amp breaker (as apposed to the standard 3-wire romex and 20amp system that supplies power to my water heater now).

I found an electric TANK water heater from Whirlpool that apparently uses 15% less energy than standard tank water heaters. In addition to the fact that it doesn't give off any heat... (which mine does). It has three times the insulation (among other things).