Is your water set to scalding?
Posted by The Sweeper on April 7th, 2009
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The Bite:
Cool it. If you have a tank water heater, turn down the temp a bit to save major energy (and no, we’re not suggesting cold showers). Hot damn.
The Benefits:
- Scorching savings. Many installers set heaters to 140 degrees, but you can comfortably get away with closer to 120 - which is hot enough to get your dishes clean, but’ll save you 6%-10% on water-heating costs.
- Not heating up the planet. If every U.S. household turns its water heater thermostat down 20 degrees, we could prevent the same amount of global-warming-causing CO2 emitted by Kuwait or Libya.
Wanna Try:
- You might wanna check the manual and give it a test run before you commit, but generally you just find the thermostat on your water heater, and turn it down to 120 degrees (if the gauge doesn’t have degrees on it, try halfway between the low and medium settings. After turning it down, you can check the water temp with a thermometer at the tap farthest from the water heater).
- If you’re gonna be outta town, you can turn electrics off completely, or turn gas ones down to the lowest setting (note: it’ll take 30 minutes to 1 hour to completely heat back up).
- Intermatic Electric Water Heater Timer - automatically turns off your electric (sorry, gas users) water heater (when you’re asleep or at work, for example); can save you an additional 5%-12% off water heating costs ($33).
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