Hmmm, what wwu123 said makes sense. Just seems kind of crazy that the furnace blower would suck up so much electricity. In regards to how old the furnace is, I have no clue. It was installed by the previous owner. Based on what I can find, I would guess it's at least 15 years old. I have not had the unit service or checked by an HVAC pro. (What do they do when they service it? Is it like a car where belts/wearable parts are replaced?) As part of an experiment, I did not turn on the heat at all yesterday. (was 52 degrees inside the house when I woke up this morning! I can do this since my wife is traveling for work and she won't complain to me about the lack of heat in the house.) I'm waiting for our "smart meter" to update PGE so I can check the energy usage for yesterday. If the usage stays flat, then it means the furnace/blower uses an obscene amount of power! If there is a spike, then someone is stealing power from me since there would be nothing turned on that wasn't already on during the day already) FYI: my peak usage of power was on Saturday 8-10pm at 2.23kWh. (can someone tell me what 1kWh is equivalent to?) Thanks!

Nice price on electricity. I pay at least twice that. Here are some numbers for you, based on your figures: A kilowatt of electricity is about 3,413 BTUs, and is $0.0636, which works out to be 53,660 BTUs per dollar. Electricity is 100% efficient, meaning that there are no combustion losses that go up the chimney at your house. Propane has about 92,000 BTUs per gallon, and is $2.50 gallon, which works out to be about 36,800 BTUs per dollar. Your existing water heater is prolly on the order of 60% efficient, which means that 40% of the BTUs out of a gallon of propane end up going up the chimney, and not in your house. As such, you are getting about 22,000 BTUs per dollar out of it. If you went with a new water heater, such as the Polaris which is 95% efficient, you would be getting about 34,900 BTUs per dollar after combustion losses. Based on your posted information, electricity would be about 65% the cost of propane for heating with a 95% efficiency water heater, and 41% of the cost of propane using your existing water heater. An electric water heater won't work because they donÂt produce enough BTUs to keep up with the demand on the house. But an electric boiler might, depending on the model and how manu BTUs your house requires to keep it warm on the coldest day of the year. An electric boiler will require a lot of electricity, though, prolly on the order of 100 amps. A 200 amp electric service to your house would be the minimum needed to run the electric boiler. You still need to address the ducting losses through your attic. If yours are anything like mine were, that is half the problem right there.

Are you sure the tank was full? The electric heating element last a very few seconds if power is applied and it is not immersed in water. You could also have a scale buildup on the element itself that can make some odd noises when power is applied.

It's prohibited for one. And for two, to actually run an electric tankless will require most of the power that you currently have in your panel. 125-200 amps are needed. If you live in a cold climate, electrical is not really doable at all because of the incoming winter water temperature. Gas tankless is much easier to retrofit, and even it may require new gas service for the home.