Electricity bill - OT

[Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC]

On Feb 8, 2005, at 4:19 AM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Chad Leigh --
>> Shire.Net LLC
>> Sent: Monday, February 07, 2005 8:29 PM
>> To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>> Subject: Re: Electricity bill - OT
>>
>>
>>
>> A lot of new-built houses in the US are installing continuous
>> circulation systems for hot water, which greatly reduces the time the
>> HW heater is running, since when you turn on the hot water, you get
>> instantaneous hot water and don't have to run a ton of water before it
>> gets hot, which reduces the amount of HW wasted.
>
> This is a gimmick built to sell houses, a cool one, but only in hot
> climates does it make much difference.  In cooler climates the heat
> from the standing water in the pipes just makes the furnace run less,
> thus the savings are a wash.

That does not make sense.  The savings is in running the hot water 
heater less.  Houses that care about energy efficiency have the hot 
water pipes insulated anyway so it would not help in cooler climes.  
The goal is to run the hot water heater less, which you achieve when 
you constantly circulate the hot water through the hot water pipes, 
instead of letting it get cold and have to run a ton when you  need a 
lot of water.

>
>> Also, the new
>> tankless HW heaters look interesting...
>>
>
> those have been around for at least 20 years.  As most of them are
> electric, not natural gas, your going to pay more money for heating
> water with a bunch of those than with a central gas water heater.
>

The ones I have seen, the newer models, are GAS and are very efficient. 
  Maybe you need to get out more?

Chad