Time for Hot Water
Having done a weekend repair job on the hot water heater reminded me to take care of something I've been wanting to do for a while... Add a timer switch to the unit.
The electric hot water heater keeps a tank full of water at 110+ degrees 24 hours a day while we use it only a few hours in the morning and a few in the evening if that. It's always felt like money ill spent to me. It was especially frustrating when I'd wake up a 2am to go use the bathroom and in the quiet of the night listen to the hiss of water being heated for use by no one.
Adding a timer was not big job but with so many other tasks waiting, I was able to put it off. But at the building supply store the other day, I was picking up receptacle face plates and ran across the shelf of Intermatic Timers. Now, with the parts in hand, I had one less excuse for not getting to the task.
As I mentioned in "Hot Water Detour," the water tank is an heirloom from a power company lease deal which means it's on a separate electric meter and has its own main line coming into the house. A switch box with a single double-pole breaker controls the power source. Adding the timer switch simply meant interrupting the circuit between the breaker switch and the water tank. The problem I had was where to mount the timer.
I wanted to avoid having to replace the entire run of cable between the breaker and the tank, but that meant I'd most likely have to add a junction box along the way in order to splice into it. The only logical place to mount the timer switch was next to the breaker box, out of reach of the existing cable.
After mounting the box for the timer switch, though, I realized there was just enough room in the small box that held the breaker, to make the splice there. That worked out well, however, I found working within the confines of that little breaker box especially stressful. The 100 amp live main was always within a few inches while stripping wires and making connections. Working in the large breaker box that serves the whole house is stressful enough, but the main is easier to avoid just by virtue of the size of the space. The little box seemed to be shrinking while I worked, trying to remain extra conscious of every move I made with strippers, pliers and screw driver.
After a few days of using the timer, we've found we only need the power on from 6-8am and 5-8pm, 19 fewer hours per day. There's a manual override on the timer switch for convenience but I don't expect we'll be using it. Even when I come home in the middle of the day, the water from the tank is still plenty hot from its last heating cycle in the morning.
Installing a hot water timer switch is helping to shrink my carbon footprint but what I'm really looking forward to is comparing our electric bills after a couple of months.
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