Prompted by high Propane bills, I've been searching the Web for several days looking for information on alternative ways to heat our water. Unfortunately, it seems each site has an agenda and I'm unable to find impartial advice. So, I'll try the Ask Me Help Desk. Here goes:

Our house (occupied by two people) is a slab floor, wood frame, comp. roof home built in 1982. It has city water and power (no natural gas), a septic tank and LP. It was remodeled in '92 with a ground floor addition and a second story above the garage. At that time, the exterior water heater was moved and replaced with an interior insulated 50 gal. A.O. Smith (first hour rating of 80 and middle of the road for efficiency). A hot water return line and Grundfos recirculating pump were also installed to mitigate the wait time at taps. Note that the pump is the type that's installed at the heater and recirculates the hot water through a return, not the type that's installed at a far end tap and pulls cold water from the hot water line.

The house is an 'L' shape. At the top of the L is the garage where the Propane water heater lives. Above the water heater (the second story addition) is a master B/R and bath. As you walk down the L there are two more baths and a den with a free standing Propane fireplace. As you reach the bottom of the L you are standing in the kitchen. The kitchen is 80' from the water heater.

Here's how we manage this: We maintain the tank heat at approx. 120 or less. The recirculating pump is on a timer. It runs for 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours at night during peak use. We have central heat and air, but do not use it during the winter as heating the whole house is unnecessary and costly. During the winter we use the Propane fireplace and block off the majority of the house heating only the den and kitchen.

Even though we are judicious with our heating and Propane use we are still slammed during the winter with Propane bills. We're currently paying about $3.00 a gallon for Propane in our area. Although the propane stove uses a significant amount of fuel, I feel my biggest user is the water tank which runs 24/7.

So, here's several option I'm considering and I need an expert to advise me:

- Replace the LP heater with a Marathon electric. (From what I've read, they're very cost efficient with only a 5% loss over 24 hours.) With an electric, we could place it on a timer heating the water for a couple of hours prior to peak use. We've done this before in other homes and found we could run the heater for only 5 hours a day with satisfactory results. Remember, there's only two of us.

- Or, replace the LP heater with a tankless LP fired heater and possibly include a "at the last tap" type of recalculation pump for tankless heaters (the ACT-909 looks good for tankless heaters).

- Or, replace my 15 year old heater with one that has the highest efficiency rating and install an "at the last tap" recalculation pump.

- Or, replace my 15 year old heater with one that has the highest efficiency rating and install 'point of use' type electric heaters at the desired taps.

- Or, install pipe tracing the entire length of the hot water line. Place it on a timer to activate during periods of peak use.

- Or, any combination of the above.

I am not as concerned about up front costs as I am about long term cost of use. I realize there is a balance here for return on investment as well.

So, that's it. Can anyone give me some solid advice?

I guess we could and I am sure some will argue the worth of a timer, since often it can take less power to keep something warm that is already warm that to bring it up to temp from a cooler state.

If you have good water pressure ( since most tankless heaters have a pressure switch as a safety so you have to have volue and pressure for them to kick in) they can do very good, And the only thing I did not see have you looked into solar heating ?