Thursday, November 12, 2015

Saving Tips: Hot Water Heaters

What temperature is you hot water heater set for?
If you don't know, go look. And while your there, try lowering it at least a few degrees. You probably won't even notice the change but it will help out your electric bill.
Hot water heaters use a considerable amount of electricity. It's estimated that roughly 12% of electricity usage is due to water heaters. And, according to you can reduce your water heating costs by 3%-5% by lowering the temperature by 10°F.
How hot should you make it?
At first try 120°F and see how it feels. If you find that it still gets so hot that you can't take a shower with only hot water then try turning it down some more. See how low you can get it before you start noticing a difference (leave a comment to let us know how low you can go :) ).
We have our heater set to about 115°F (but it's hard to tell since the labeling isn't very good) and have found that we can still take a shower as hot as I can stand it. We could go lower if we didn't have to worry about making sure it's hot enough to clean our cloth diapers very thoroughly.
We love finding ideas like these that are painless and free ways to save more money.