Save Money - Turn Down Your Water Heater

When my husband and I were plunged into sudden poverty, one of the first things I did was to review our monthly expenses to determine where we could cut back.

We were using 50 gallons of propane per month even during the summer, which didn’t make any sense to me. During the summer months, we are able to line-dry clothes and only use the gas for cooking and hot water. The culprit had to be our water heater, which is a well insulated, high quality model. So I called up the company that had installed our heating system and got a technician to walk me through lowering the temperature. Most water heaters aren’t so complex, but ours is tied in to our forced air heating system, an intimidating matrix of pipes connected to a burner-thingie, and a digital display with mysterious buttons. Not wanting to mess up the works, I thought I’d best get expert advice on which buttons to push.

It turned out to be quite simple, and I lowered the temp from 130 degrees to 110. Twenty degrees difference! I had read all kinds of warnings about how, if you have a dishwasher, you need to have the temperature set high, but I haven’t had a problem with the hot water set on 110. The dishes still get clean – although I rinse them before putting them in, so there’s no incrusted food for our Bosch dishwasher to remove. Some dishwashers have a “booster” that heats the water, but ours doesn’t. It’s an elegant and nearly silent machine, and it cost a pretty penny back in the days when we had money. The reason we bought such a good one is that we had a cheapo from Home Depot when we first finished our kitchen, and a Hecho in Mexico plastic part burst one night and we woke up to find our kitchen floor flooded. We had to replace part of the floor. Cheap is expensive.

In the first week of October, we had 78 bucks in the bank, and it was going to have to last us till the end of the month. We checked our propane tank level and it was at zero. We couldn’t afford to pay the previous propane bill, which was $285.00 and 60 days past due, so we couldn’t order a delivery. So we got out the electric hotplate to cook with, and we turned the water heater down to 100 degrees. And lo and behold, that is the perfect temperature for a shower. You can shower with full on hot at that temp. We hand washed the dishes. The dishwasher works fine at that temperature, but we were being radical in our reduction of hot water use. Our showers lasted no more than 3 minutes. That's the length of time Hugo Chavez said to use when he scolded Venezuelans about their energy usage. He said, "I showered for 3 minutes and I didn't stink." Hey, Hugo, neither did we. We made it through to the end of the month, paid our previous propane bill, and got a delivery of 200 whole gallons. (We have a 1000 gallon buried tank.)

We put the temp back up to 110, because our big indulgence is taking baths, but in our conservation mode, we only take a bath every other day. We have this big, fabulous two person Jacuzzi tub that we call our “think tank” and since we're self-underemployed, we start each day by taking a bath together. We always seem to come up with great plans in the tub. So now I alternate the temperature. After our bath this morning, I turned the water heater back down to 100 for tomorrow’s shower. I won’t turn it back up till tomorrow night, so that there will be hot water for the next morning’s bath.

Here’s another bonus: for years, we’d had trouble with our tub temperatures. If the handle was turned 1/16th of an inch too far, the water was scalding. An ooch in the other direction, and it was too cold. At 110, you can pour a bath full on hot, and it’s just right for about a half hour soak. It only took us 8 years to figure that out.

Dropping the water temperature down to 110 has lowered our propane usage dramatically, to about 30 gallons per month. I’ll have to see if our alternating schedule of shower/bath, plus alternating between 100/110 will save even more.

Another insane money-saving tip: let the bathwater stand in the tub for most of the day, and it will heat the bathroom. However, don't do this is you have small children or pets that are likely to fall in. The heat transfer from the warm water to the cold air of the bathroom will work to your advantage, and once the water is cold, you can go ahead and let it out, having profited from that warmth instead of sending it down the drain.