Quote:
Originally Posted by SailinAway
At this point I've had the water heater turned off at the breaker for the past month. My August kWh usage was 34% lower than August last year with a combination of strategies.
Yesterday I closed the hot and cold valves on the water heater to make sure I'm not bathing with water from the heater due to the risk of bacteria. I'm drawing cold water from the town supply for bathing.
Q1: My handyman says I should drain the water heater at this point to avoid mold etc. growing in it and also rust. Is he correct?
Q2: Would the simplest solution be a well-insulated 10-gallon tank placed next to the 53-gallon tank? That way the next owner of the house could use the larger tank if they prefer, while I would not use the large tank from this point forward.
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Why not use your breaker-controlled tank for other chores? (Watering, rinsing, cold water washing machine chores). Maintaining a regular (cold) flow through the water heater shouldn't be difficult. I do it, and turn the breaker back "on" 15 minutes before a shower. The freshly-heated water rises to the top of the heater, and is drawn-off first. You'll know when your shower is nearly over--
automatically.
Back when I had 120-v water heaters, I put a household timer on them to save on excessive heating. It doesn't need to be
really hot to be useful. One was 40-gallon, the other was 90. (!)
Speaking of timers, take two $8 household timers--plugged together--to operate an irrigation/utility pump one hour a week from a lake (or cistern). Set one timer to go on for three hours, the second to operate one hour. Using this technique, you don't have to be present at the lake to water your plants. As to the number of days and hours, YMMV.
Insurance-based water heater "take-outs" will help to economize. This being hurricane season, advertise "WTB" on Craigslist. I sold
two to a desperate contractor who had a "tent city" of volunteer electricians with no hot water.
I should add that mold is suspect in
peripheral neuropathy, a nerve condition experienced by ~15% of Americans.