We have an electrical hot water tank (40 gallons..we rent and can't change it to a smaller size ACK!). I was just wondering if I turn it off for 4 hours in the day will that conserve electricity or cost more to rehaet the water?  We can't do a longer time then that really because of dh work schedule.

Any advice?

Melina

I don't think I would turn it off but put a heater blanket (one made for the job) on it and turn it down as low as you can stand.

If it's a newer heater, it's probably well insulated. Use the store bought heater blanket and see what happens when you turn it off. I have turned off both electric and propane (to the pilot setting) The electric heater took about a half hour to recover, enough for two showers.(We set our alarm clock for thirty minutes before we showered for work in the a.m.) Propane heater was turned off at night and not turned on until about 3:00 p.m. and it was still pretty hot at that time. It was ready for dishes, evening showers etc in about 30 minutes.

I'm not sure if you have the same over there but here in Australia we have an "Off Peak hot water" option. That means that your water is only heated when the electricity rate is the cheapest for that day. I use to work for the mining industry and in one of the jobs I did I had to write about timing the heating of magnesium. The mine was hooked up, via a computer screen, to the electricity prices and boy, did they change drastically during the day. All through normal business hours it's the highest, it has a peak again at dinner time - early evening, then goes down drastically overnight.

Using off peak hot water you take advantage of the lows in this system. It might we worthwhile knowing if your electricity has this option.

Will your landlord allow you to put a timer on it? You can set the timer to give you hot water when you need it.

http://www.stretcher.com/stories/03/03oct06k.cfm

http://www.healthgoods.com/Education/Healthy_Home_Information/Water_Heating/saving_water_and_heating.htm

Thanks guys!

We actually are going to turn off the hot water tank during the day fom 7am to 7pm. run the dishwasher at night, showers too and showers at 2:30am and at 6am (dh work schedule). So we are going to have it off 12 hours a day. Hope it helps! Also we are going to get the blanket next month.

Thanks!