We Are Putting a Timer on Our Water Heater

**thriftstorequeen** · 11-16-2006, 08:17 AM

We did it we got a water heater timer! My hubby will be putting it on today! Can't wait to see how much this $40 investment pays off!

**nuisance26** · 11-16-2006, 08:23 AM

~Yey!Was is it easy to install?What times did you set it to go on and off?~

**PAVallygrl** · 12-13-2006, 06:04 PM

So, how much did it save you?

**thriftstorequeen** · 12-13-2006, 06:55 PM

Thanks for asking. I was excited to open the bill today! We saved$17.13. We thought this was pretty good because we started using it around Thanksgiving. Hubby has it coming on for a couple of hours in the morning and then again in the evening. I seems to be working out find. Can't wait to see the bill for next month to see if we saved more!

**jkelstaten** · 12-14-2006, 04:13 AM

Things are pretty antiquated here so we just unplug our hot water heater. The washer heats it's own water so the only thing we really need it for is to take showers & baths. We do those all on the same day (usually every other day during the winter) so we only plug it in to heat water for those, and to refill the tank to wash dishes on the off day. It stays heated long enough for what we use. We rent so we can't do much more than that (not that they would actually have a timer here anyway......) We can't tell how much we are saving because we started using an electric heater at the same time so it's pretty much cancelled out.

**banana** · 12-14-2006, 09:16 AM

thriftstorequeen - That is great! I'm glad you saw a reduction in your bill!

jkelstaten - I'm sure you saved something!

MC · 01-10-2007, 11:07 AM

I've been curious about this. Is it a regular timer, like for a lamp, or is it a special one just for the water heater? Our water stays warm for a long time, and the heater itself is huge so just having it run for a few hours would make a huge difference, I'm sure!! When we had our gas shut off, I was still able to shower the kids and myself, wash the dishes, and do a load of laundry. The water was still fairly warm the next day, though it cooled down way quicker.

**Katybird** · 01-10-2007, 12:27 PM

Great work! Thanks for letting us know how it is working for you.

**PAVallygrl** · 01-10-2007, 01:13 PM

Let us know what the next bill looks like. I had asked 2 plumbers I know if this would be effective and both said no.....it would just take that much more to re-heat the water in the water tank. So I'd really like to know exactly what the deal is with these water tank timers since I'm really considering putting one in also.

**Springer** · 01-11-2007, 08:23 AM

Originally Posted by MC

I've been curious about this. Is it a regular timer, like for a lamp, or is it a special one just for the water heater? Our water stays warm for a long time, and the heater itself is huge so just having it run for a few hours would make a huge difference, I'm sure!! When we had our gas shut off, I was still able to shower the kids and myself, wash the dishes, and do a load of laundry. The water was still fairly warm the next day, though it cooled down way quicker.

The one I have is by Intermatic and called the Little Grey Box. It is a special 240 volt and we wired it into the line, as we used to have one supplied by the electric company as we are on Time of Day Rate. They don't supply them anymore, so we had to replace with our own. We got ours at Lowes.

**banana** · 01-11-2007, 08:58 AM

Pavallygrl - I will make a difference in your bill. We were all electric in the Poconos and I asked my brother to install one, he is an electrician. He told me not to bother that it wouldnt make a difference but it did!

**thriftstorequeen** · 01-11-2007, 09:30 AM

That is where we got ours. So far it is working out fine. We have had to over ride only a couple of times. It may seem crazy but my hubby and I can wait to get the electic bill for this month to see how we did. I'll let you know as soon as we know.

**PAVallygrl** · 01-11-2007, 03:02 PM

OK Would you please let me know. I am very serious about putting a timer on mine. In the meantime I have lowered the temp on the thing. Thanks!

MC · 01-11-2007, 04:40 PM

Thanks for the reply--I've been looking at one for a while.

PAValleygirl--the idea is to not let the water cool down completely before you heat it back up. We have a 55 gallon tank and if we turned the heater off for a few hours, we'd still have plenty of hot water left that would last a day. So if we turned it off say, overnight, and set it to turn on a few hours before we got up, the water would be heated for use during the day. Then it would turn off again after we're done using lots of water for the day, and so on.

I'm thinking between a timer and a blamket we'd save a ton!!