10 gal water heater?

stoveguyy

7 years ago

last modified: 7 years ago

Is a 10gal elec wtr heater enough for short showers? 50 gal htr is $750/yr. is 10 gal htr 1/5 of that?

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Comments (6)

Bruce in Northern Virginia
7 years ago
A small 10 gal water heater might work, but doesn't give you much more than about one shower. Electricity usage and the need for hot water are also not linear, so I'm not sure it would take only 1/5th the electricity of a 50 gal heater.

If you want to reduce the cost of running typical electric water heater (40 gal size is probably more common than 50 gal), there are two simple methods you can use with any electric water heater.

1 - Add insulation to the water heater with an external blanket to decrease its heat loss (follow the manufacturer's recommendations)

2 - Install a water heater timer that turns the heater on only when you need it. For example, turn it on 2 hours in the morning while you are showering for work, and 2 hours in the evening when you are running the dishwasher and taking baths or showers. That means that 20 hours a day it is drawing zero electricity, and the extra insulation will allow it to retain more hot water while the electricity is off.

Bruce
stoveguyy
Original Author
7 years ago
Was looking into putting 20kw elec unit near our kitchen/master bath. Since they are on same run. Our laundry room and main bath are 30ft away and could share a 2nd unit. I see 6-10 gal tank elec models and wondered if they would work in our current situation. Kids are gone. Main bath is NOT used at all.
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Zone4 - you might not be happy but disclosure wouldn't apply here. There is no code requirement that applies (that I know of) and so there is no breach. It would seem that installing LP for that purpose alone seems a little extreme. One option - which has cheaper run cost and install than the LP tankless option - run a recirc loop from that bathroom to the tank. Have it on a switch. You turn on the switch and the line fills with hot water. The pump is $200, electric should be $200 and extra plumbing is $100. You won't waste water and as long as you shut it off, you won't waste electricity to heat the water. My $100 charges of course are guesses and the plumbing in the slab might be more. The $200 electric is what it would cost me in NC. You can of course put the kitchen sink on the same loop and install a switch at that location too. Recirc loops are done all the time but where you need to be careful is the energy loses because they are usually left on nearly all the time. By having them on-demand with switches, you counter most of those losses. To help with some of this, I would definitely insulate the slab plumbing lines. Another option would be to do solar for the hot water and use a 80 gallon tank. If the incentives are there, solar can be reasonable. I paid less than $2000 all in which is about the cost of your 2 50 gallon heat pumps.
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All though there are some very high end exceptions, as a rule there really isn't a hill of beans difference between electric water heaters. Basically they have a steel pressure vessel which is usually line with a baked on powder coat ceramic finish which is advertised as "glass lined" Surround that they have an insulation blanket. Some have a fiberglass blanket but most today have a rigid foam insulation material. That is all encapsulated in a thin sheet metal sheel. They nearly all have 4500watt 240v electric heating elements that are made by a third party supplier and with some rare exception, the heating elements are interchangable between brands of water heaters. They have an upper thermostat which switches between the upper heating element and the lower element and it also has a built in overload control (reset button). The lower thermostat only turns the element on or off. In fact, you can buy a universal rebuild kit at Home Depot which has both heating elements and both T/stats for $31.27. They may or may not come with a T&P valve. If you need a T&P valve it is a universal part made by Watts Corp. that fits into a 3/4" port in the top of the tank. Some also come with the dielectric nipples packed with the water heater. Many of them are actually made on the same production line and they don't get a manufactures name until they reach the final labeling and packaging dept.
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We don't have much info to go on. We don't know what your needs are, what your wants are or what your budget is. All we really know is that you want gas in the event that the electricity is out. A tankless requires a small amount of electricity to operate - it would not operate if the power was out. A generator would solve that problem and provide power for other things as well. I don't completely agree with Dan, you can size a tankless to run more than one thing at a time. I sized mine so that in the coldest part of the year I could run the shower and the bathroom faucet - in the summer I can run about twice that amount. It works fine in my house, but if I had a larger family I'd go with a larger unit. There are also 50 gal Hybrid units - They store the water but have high BTU input and very high efficiency. They can produce a certain amount of continuous hot water as well. These meet the 30% tax credit requirements and vent with PVC pipe - making them cheap to install where long vent runs are needed. I have included an example - I'm not endorsing a particular brand. Note that these would not run without a small amount of electrical power. Here is a link that might be useful: State Hybrid
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of course, if the 10g heater is not powered, then you will waste a lot of water. think about it, during cold winter nights/days it will cool off considerably, especially if you hav ebeen out of town a couple days. then you have to run 10gallons PLUS however much stands in the lines to get hot water. with a 2.5gpm shower head, that is a 4 minute wait for hot water!
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User
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
Smaller water heaters tend to be less efficient than larger ones simply because the surface area available for heat loss is higher in proportion to volume. The amount of hot water you can expect to get from a unit is approximately 75% of the total volume - a ten gallon unit will provide 7.5 gallons of hot water - that's maybe one load of laundry or a short shower.
rwiegand
7 years ago
My camper has an 8 gal water heater, it's enough, but don't let the water run except for the initial wet down and then rinse-- shut it off in between. For energy efficiency go for an on-demand heater close to the primary use point. Or insulate your tank.
stoveguyy
Original Author
7 years ago
not sure how long a Chinese made 15kw instant heater will last. U can get them for $250 or so. Put 1 by kitchen. Another by master bath. Laundry room?
User
7 years ago
Seems a little penny wise and pound foolish to me, when two cheap pieces of crap that will likely be slow to produce hot water due to running on 110V will cost you nearly the same as one quality 50 gallon water heater that runs on 220V. You'll likely spend more in the long run and run short of hot water, but it's your house..

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10 gal water heater?

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Bruce in Northern Virginia

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rwiegand

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10 gal water heater?

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Bruce in Northern Virginia

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rwiegand

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