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Chapter 15

WATER: HEAT IT AND USE IT EFFICIENTLY

What can an efficient, well-maintained water system do for you? It can lower your water bill; save energy on water heating; deliver hot water safely and quickly; and grow beautiful landscaping without wasting water.

Water is an essential and limited resource, not to be wasted. Treating and pumping water to your home consumes energy. Heating that water consumes even more energy; it takes 30 times more energy to heat a gallon of water than it takes to treat and deliver that water to your house. Water heating accounts for 1540% of a households energy bill. Often you can substantially reduce your energy use simply through water conservation. Your first thought might be to go buy the most efficient water heater you can find. But the price tag may be highand it may not even get you what you want: enough hot water, quickly, safely, and inexpensively. So lets look first at other parts of your water system. You may be able to use the equipment you already have, with some modifications or with better maintenance. Youll probably need to work with a plumber. Reading this chapter will help you communicate with your plumber to get what you want. Equip yourself to ask the right questions. If you take the time to understand the process, youll save yourself from replacing your water heater when a bit of maintenance would have kept it serviceable much longer; buying the fanciest, most efficient water heater available, but not getting enough hot water when you want it; spending a lot for a new tankless water heater thats not appropriate for your needs; buying a solar-thermal system before reducing water wasteand then finding that the system is oversized for your new, reduced needs; making requests your contractor doesnt understand; trying to do the work yourself; or not trying to do the work yourself. If you take steps in the right order, youll save resources, money, and time and wind up with the hot-water system you want. Heres the right order: 1. Wring out the waste. 2. Install water-saving devices. 3. Select a water heater that is compatible with your needs.
Water is a precious resource to be enjoyed, not wasted. Treating, pumping, and heating water consume energy also not to be wasted.

HOW MUCH WATER AND MONEY CAN YOU SAVE?

The average American family spends about 18% of their total energy bill on hot waterabout $400 per year to heat water with natural gas, or about $650 with an electric water heater. In warmer states, about half the gas bill is for heating water. The average American household could save as much as 50% on both its water bill and the water-heating bill by making its water system more efficient. Fewer than 1% of American households use solar water heating, which might handle up to 75% of the remaining water-heating load.

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STEP ONE: WRING OUT THE WASTE

First, figure out how much water (and water-heating energy) your household currently uses. Establishing this base load makes it easy to quantify how much you save.
Use Home Energy Saver (hes.lbl.gov) to calculate how much energy and money you can save by choosing different water-heating equipment.

To establish a water use base load, look at your water bills, month by month and over a whole year. If you dont water your landscaping in winter, compare your winter and summer water bills for a good idea of how much water you use for irrigation (assuming the rest of your water consumption remains fairly steady year-round). To establish a water-heating energy use base load, subtract all non-waterheating energy uses from your total energy use. Begin by comparing your summer utility bills with your winter utility bills. If your furnace and water heater are both gas fired, your summer utility bills will indicate your gas usage minus the energy used for winter heating. If your range and oven are also gas fired, you can read your gas meter; not use the stove for a day; then read the meter again to subtract cooking gas usage from your total. If you have electric water heating, start with a years worth of utility bills. Then use a Kill A Watt meter to measure refrigerator electricity use over a week or two. Multiply this out to represent a years use and subtract the result from your total annual electricity use. If you have electronics like TVs that use a lot of power, use the Kill A Watt meter to measure their electricity use. In the same way, remove any other large loads from your total annual electricity use. The amount that remains is your water-heating energy use base load.

DANGER ZONE: WATER HEATER SAFETY

Hazards of working on a hot-water system include scalding water, flammable gas, combustion gases, and electricity. If the relief valve is gushing steaming hot water, dont turn the water off; if the water is above the boiling point, you risk an explosion. Get out of the house quickly and turn off the gas at the meter or the electricity at the breaker box. Water heaters can fly 500 feet when they blow up. Follow manufacturers warnings. Dont take things apart unless you are sure you know what youre doing. If you are coming close to electric, gas, oil, or propane lines, turn off the supplies to the areas you are working on, or have a plumber do so. For a good discussion of precautions, see waterheaterrescue.com.

Time-to-Tap: What Are You Waiting For?

When you turn on the hot-water faucet, you have to wait for the hot water to arrive. What flows first through the pipe from the water heater to the tap (and then down the drain) is the cooled-down water thats been sitting in the pipethe water you heated last time you turned on the hot water. How much water are you running down the drain? You can measure it by collecting it in a bucket. Lets say its 2 cups. If so, youre in pretty good shape; the distance between your water heater and the faucet is probably short. If youre wasting more than 2 cups, theres plenty of room for savings. Lets look more closely at that water sitting in your pipes. When you turn off the tap, all the water in the pipe between the water heater and the tap begins to cool. If your pipes are uninsulated, that water can cool down pretty quickly. But if your pipes are insulated or are in a hot attic, the water cools more slowly. You may be able to cut the amount of cool water that is wasted while youre waiting for hot water by insulating any uninsulated distribution pipes. But how much you can save depends a lot on when hot water is used in your home. If you use hot water only for an hour or so in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening, insulating your distribution pipes probably wont save you much. Thats because, even with insulation, the hot water in your pipes will eventually cool down to match the surrounding temperature. So water that was hot in the morning will be cool again by evening. On the other hand, not too much heat will be lost if the times when you use hot water are

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clustered together, even if the distribution pipes are not insulated. If your hot-water use is spaced throughout the day, your potential savings from insulation will be greater. You might also be able to save energy by reconfiguring the routes from hot source to tap, or by installing a recirculation system, as described below, but these are both fairly expensive options.

Maintain Your Water Heater to Maximize Its Efficiency

If you decide to keep your current water heater, set up a maintenance schedule so that it will last longer and function more efficiently: Test the temperature and pressure relief valve annually. Have a plumber do this the first time. After that, you can test the valve once a year. Check the sacrificial anode rod every three to five years in normal water, every two years in softened water. Have the plumber install a curved dip tube in the tank for easier tank cleaning, install thermal traps (also called heat traps) on the water lines, check and replace the sacrificial anode rod, and get rid of sediment in the bottom of the tank. Have the plumber add a second anode rod to the tank if possible, so the tank will be protected twice as long. You may also want the plumber to install a brass ball valve on the water heater drain. Plastic valves are delicate and are likely to fail when used. If you have a gas- or oil-fired unit, also have the plumber check the air supply and venting. A curved dip tube lets you clear out sediment every six months: Hook up a hose to the end of the drain valve. Open the drain valve. The dip tube should deliver a stream of water that stirs up the sediment and flushes it out. Leave the valve open until the water runs clear (three to five minutes). Once your plumber has demonstrated these tasks, you can continue to do maintenance yourself. Now and then, just stop and look at the heater. Is rain coming down the vent pipe? Did the cat knock the vent pipe loose? If so, call your plumber.

Insulate the Storage Tank

If your tank-style water heater was purchased after the mid-1990s, it probably has tank insulation built in; its not worth adding more. But if your water heater is older than that, it might not have adequate insulation. If you place your hand on the tank and it feels warm, it needs more insulation. Insulating your water heater is an effective, inexpensive do it yourself (DIY) task, especially if the tank is in unconditioned space (garage, basement, outdoors). Add-on water heater tank insulation is cheap and readily available at home improvement and hardware stores; look for an R-value of 12 or greater.

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Insulate the Pipes

A great water heater wont save you much water or energy if hot water frequently gets cold in the pipes. If you use hot water throughout the day, and often wait a long time for hot water, insulating your pipes might be a good idea. It will be easiest to do this when youre changing the plumbing, since pipes inside walls and ceilings are harder to wrap with insulation. Pipe insulation sheaths are made of foam or fiberglass. They usually come with a lengthwise slit, so you just snap them onto the pipe. Use 3/4"-thick foam or 1"-thick fiberglass (1/2" in a tight space) as a minimum, and seal all joints carefully with acrylic tape.

DANGER ZONE: INSULATE IT RIGHT

Add insulation to your water heaterbut carefully. For gas water heaters, blanket insulation can slip down and choke off the combustion air supply. Wrap plumbers tape around the top edge of the insulation and secure it with self-tapping screws. This will hold the blanket to the top edge of the tank. Everywhere else, you can just use more tape if the insulation comes off. With an electric heater, dont add insulation over the access hatches to the elements. Its okay to insulate the top of an electric water heater tank, taking care not to cover any valves. But insulating the top of a gas or oil water heater could interfere with the draft hood and block airflow. Have a look at your water heater now and then. If theres an overhead leak onto the top of the heater, the blanket can funnel the water under the cover and the whole jacket can turn into a lace of rust.

Insulate all the hot-water pipes in the house and the first 5 feet of the coldwater inlet at the water heater. Hot water tends to float up into the coldwater inlet, cool off, and drop back into the tank; adding insulation or installing a heat trap reduces this effect.

Use Less Water

Using less hot water is the cheapest and easiest way to save water and energy. You can save hot water by remodeling an inefficient hot-water system and by using hot water more efficiently. An inefficient system can be made more efficient by reducing the length of the piping and by sizing it for the available water pressure, but this can be expensive. However, it costs little or nothing to change your habits: Take shorter showers. Use cold water for washing your hands and doing laundry. Dont leave water running while brushing teeth or doing dishes.

Save Water in the Landscape

If you havent been water aware, it will probably be easy for you to cut a lot of water waste in your yard. Growing regionally native plants, which are accustomed to the rainfall in your area, costs far less than keeping up a lawn. You can reduce evaporative water losses by replacing sprinklers with drip irrigation; watering early in the morning or late at night; and adding several inches of mulch, such as wood chips or straw, to the bare ground around plants.

A LITTLE MAINTENANCE MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE

Larry Weingarten serviced water heaters for over 20 years, making around 4,000 service calls. I got heaters to last over 50 years, says Larry, and the failure rate remained under one-half of 1%. From a longevity perspective, you can do MUCH better with maintenancewhich also solves most performance problems.

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