Quote:
Originally Posted by Island Girl
I looked at the link about all the math behind turning off the hot water heater. It looked like the assumption was that it was 60 degrees in the room in which the hot water heater was located. In my case, the heater is under the house, exposed to outside air temperatures. This week that can go down into the 30's. I would think the savings are much greater turning it off instead of the heater keeping the water at 120 degrees while we are not there.
IG
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IG, I would agree. The math also takes into account the insulation value of the tank itself. These are all things that will raise or lower how much you could save.
Although you cannot use just any old insulation laying around, they do have fiberglass insulation products that you could wrap the existing tank with. That would increase the R-value of the appliance. The product has a grey vapor barrier attached that feels more like a plastic material than the tradition paper backed fiberglass batt insulation.
Doing this will help keep the water in the tank, hotter, longer when it is running.