Electric water heater: OK to turn it off?

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by thinkxingu

I'd be interested to know how long you have to have it off before noticing a decent savings.

Larger (30gal+) water heaters are usually 4000-5000W. Let's say 4500W on average. Your electric rate is based on Kilowatt hours, or using 1KW for 1 Hour. 4500 = 4.5Kw. Multiply your full electric rate by 4.5, and that's how much it costs to run your heater for an hour.

If that rate is 20 cents, then an hour of operation is 90 cents, for example. Of course it's not running the whole time, but if you can eliminate 2 hours of heater run time per day that can add up to $54.00/month, or less than $2/day.