Hi Guys,

I'm still trying to figure where all my electric is being used. My home is about 18-20 years old . We moved in about 11 Years ago. I have never cleaned water heater and I don't think it is a high end one.Could I be using 30% of my electric bill on water heater? I saw article in lowe's question and answers sections. Thanks for any input anthony1429

Water heaters are big fuel hogs. That is why in Europe you do not see large storage tanks. What you see are either small point of use heaters or one of the larger tankless heaters now coming onto the scene in the USA. If you can afford it and you house is able, a tankless heater will save you big bucks

What other watt hogs do you have? If you check your September and October bills, what else would be running up your bill? I was looking at gas tankless heaters a few years ago. According to Bosch's figures, one of their tankless unit would save me more than my gas tank style heater and dryer together used. My crap detector went ''Bong, bong, bong, bong, bong.'' It could depend on your life style. There is just my wife and I now in our 4 bedroom empty nest. Even with many of the vents closed, it still takes a lot to heat the house. In the mean time, it may take 3-4 days to fill the dishwasher before running a load. Showers and laundry also use less hot water than when both kids were home. For one of the kids, the hot water heater had to deal with cloth diapers.

If you have a large family and they all take long, hot, full blast showers, run lots of partial dishwasher and laundry loads, yes you are going to use a lot of fuel heating hot water. If the tank is poorly located, you will run lots of cooled off water down the drain. Of course, ''instant'' hot water is only instant at the outlet. If doe to clearances and power requirements the tankless unit goes in the same place, no gain. If you are using water wastefully, there are other ways to reduce hot water heating. Tell you wife to buy more clothes and dishes so you can run full loads in the dishwasher and clothes washer.

I have heard of a device called a Kill a Watt or some such. You plug it in an outlet, and plug something into it and it measures how much electricity what ever is plugged into it uses. I don't know there is one available to hardwire into a hot water tank or not. I would love to see some real figures on it. None of the estimates I have seen hold up to my real world usage. I haven't seen any other figures from a source that I trust. Another thing to do would be to shut the power off to your heater sometime when you are going to be away. Leave the water on. See how much the water cools off. When I am working near my water heater, and nobody is using water, it seldom fires up. I might add my opinions on this matter are not popular with a couple of people in the plumbing forum that make their living selling and installing tankless heaters.

Another consideration is the expense of having your electrical service upgraded. Even if you already have 200 amp service, you might have to go to 400 amp service. This can put a crimp in pay back and cash flow calculations. So you have made a good start questioning a figure from somebody that sells tankless heaters. The only hard figures I have are on my own usage. I don't know where to send you for good ones.