Reports by Consumers

The roads within Earthaven are gravel with bridges over the streams suitable for heavy trucks. There are numerous well used walking paths through the forest between buildings and neighborhoods. Several mountain streams meander through the property. Fourteen natural springs provide drinking water. There are filtered water stations strategically placed around the site. Hot water comes from solar water heaters. Electricity is generated by photovoltaic panels on the roof of each building and one small hydroelectric power plant that provides power to the central neighborhood. Toilets are composting and peeing in the woods is encouraged. There are small propane tanks (like the kind used for BBQ grilles) used for cooking.

As the cleanest of the fossil fuels, increased usage of natural gas will be instrumental in decreasing pollution levels from all sectors. This is a good thing for American households, where more than 62.5 million homes depend on natural gas to fuel stoves, furnaces, water heaters, clothes dryers and other household appliances.

And of course, our potable water will be heated by tankless water heaters. Instead of having a big tank that is keeping many gallons of water hot constantly for when you might need it, tankless heaters turn on automatically and start heating the water when water flow begins. We will be using several small models at the point-of-use to minimize the loss of water due to travel time across the house. Every time you turn on the shower and wait for the hot water to kick in, you are wasting water. Point-of-use heaters will allow us to avoid that, plus have the added convenience of almost immediate hot water. It does cost a little more initially, but the multi-year long term benefits are quite worthwhile.

St. John’s members interested in energy-efficiency improvements to their homes should know that federal tax credits of 10-30% of the cost of such improvements are available through the end of 2007 for most of the best such improvements (insulation, efficient doors and windows, furnaces, hot water heaters, etc.).

First, we checked the local Better Business Bureau (BBB) for members that are plumbing contractors. Next, we checked with the local agency in charge of licensing contractors to see if there were any complaints against the prospective BBB members who are plumbers. Finally, we checked with the manufacturer of the water heater that we were planning to get to see if they had any authorized dealers among the BBB members who had clean records with the licensing agency.

He confirmed our worst fears--it was nothing that a plumber could come and fix. It was simply a matter of not enough people using the hot water. I suppose we could have tried to use as much water as the hundreds of students who are here during the term, but Thad had a better idea. An American family who is here this year to study Chinese had purchased and installed their own water heaters, so Thad told me to ask them where they got their heater, go and buy one for our flat and he would reimburse us the cost. I was in the middle of the lessons for "Tuesday", but this was important enough that I could juggle the schedule a bit and make an appliance run.

The plumber informed us that we needed a new water heater. After going over our options, on both water heaters and warranties, we found that the bill would come to $1,933. Naturally, the first thing both my wife and I wanted to know was: “What can you do for us?”

I wake up to the sound of the phone. It was the tenants from my grandparent’s apartment calling our house since they can’t get a hold of them. The hot water heaters were down and nobody could get hot water. My father comes home and says he had been working on them for the past hour and asked if I was willing to come with him to Home Depot to help him get a new hot water heater since his plumber brother is nowhere to be found.

Electricity is also being wasted, with the unfortunate by product of pollution to boot. The Bermuda Sun has a bit in their opinion section where a reader has some good ideas to cut down on the electricity bill. Today I’ll be purchasing CFL bulbs and phasing out the old ones as they burn out, as well as lowering the thermostat on the water heaters. The only side effect is a lower electricity bill after all. If people were to do this, in conjunction with Belco’s underwater turbine initiative, then Bermuda’s dependency on fossil fuels will be lower. Less pollution, less waste.

Witness the DIY Solar Water Heater, assemble for less than five bucks. Put together by the Sietch Group (and damn, that's a cool name) from parts they found at the dump or being discarded. It might be a cool project for a water heater you could take camping or maybe sailing.

The first eco-hostels in the UK opened last year, after a retrofit that saw one gain the usual core eco-attributes of photovoltaic roof panels, rainwater harvesting for toilet flushing, plus a wool insulation. But it also picked up a green roof, compost toilet and organic paint. Such changes to the hostel have enabled it to reduce water use by 30% and CO2 emissions by 40%.

A few weeks ago, a company called Pulsar Advanced Technologies announced that they had developed a microwave-powered tankless hot water heater. The idea is an intriguing one: rather than maintaining and heating a 50-gallon tank of water 24/7, simply replace the tank and heater with a microwave-powered unit. When the unit detects a pressure drop, it powers up the magnetron and rapidly pumps microwaves into the passing water.

A brief article on Sustainable Review reports that a recently signed law will now award tax credits to American households with tankless water heaters. The credit award can reach amounts up to $300.

There should really be a comedy about a guy trying to cram lumber, hot water heaters and other awkward large items from Home Depot into his car.

I did a lot of research and figured out that the most efficient propane hot water heaters are the new tankless models. At around 87% efficiency, they looked like they could take a huge chunk out of my propane bill (no residual heat loss and infinite hot water). However, at $700 for a 4.2 gpm model (enough for ~2 simultaneous showers) I had to ask myself, “Is propane even worth it?”

As we’ve already learned, the Vulcanus MK4 is a tankless water heater that uses microwaves to change standard ground water to piping hot in seconds. It is based on the Faraday Box–similar to the microwave in your kitchen. What makes the Mark 4 different from other water heaters is it’s size: 24×14x7.5 It is also esthetically pleasing, allowing ’stand alone’ use or versatality in placement. From the website, “This is the only system of its’ kind that can function under all climatic conditions.It can convert water at ground source of 35F-140F within seconds in unlimited capacity. It is so simplistic in design that one requires only a cold water inlet pipe and a hot water exit pipe be attached to its’ two terminals. Design, shape,reliability, cost, energy savings, compact, and user friendly, Vulcanus is this and more. We are so confident of our product that we offer a 10-year on the Faraday casing, 3 years on all parts, and a full 1-year warranty on labor.” The unit is also fully recyclable–although I would imagine this applies to only the casing. In comparisons, they mention that the unit only weighs 20lbs. Corrison is ‘nil’ and a gas infrastructure is not needed.

Part of our day today was spent at Home Depot, looking at water heaters. Nathan’s busted today so he wanted to look into cost and installation for either today or tomorrow. There was a lot of standing around looking at stuff and then looking for help, capped off by an extremely unhelpful conversation with a salesperson. Seriously unhelpful. I can’t even begin to recreate the conversation here because I wouldn’t be able to do it justice as to how insane it was.

All is not good, however. Since a large portion of Ontario’s power comes from coal, and natural gas is cleaner than coal, an increase in pollution will be seen. This, however, is another issue that the governments have to deal with immediately, with or without the introduction of Microwave water heaters.

Will call the plumber to have him set up the gas lines for our stove, both furances, fireplace, garage, both hot water heaters and outside deck also start the rough in plumbing.

I think emergency kits ought to be distributed at food banks, along with instructions and information in various languages. I wonder who could make that happen, or if it has already been proposed.

There was one New Orleans resident I’ve heard about — though I couldn’t tell you where — who realized after about four days of dehydration that he and his crew could get water from hot water heaters. Four days. None of them had known.

Link: Water Heaters. The California Energy Commission has compared the energy cost for water heaters and a solar system would save up tp $565 and then we use the metrics mention earlier about savings and increase value of the property, the $565 increases the value of the property about $12,000 depending also where you live. Why do I mention solar powered water heaters in yr 2005 on a site for issues of the 23rd century? I believe that demand for 1st generation solar power products today will drive the development of next generation, and next generation...

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Water Heaters:

Finally, it would be good to explore distributed power generation. We used to have solar panels on my Dad's house in the 1980s. They never generated enough to repay the cost, and I cannot think how much landfill space they will generate when they are removed (that house won't last forever). But there are good cases for using solar and wind energy as supplemental systems, along with on-demand water heaters and other technologies like heat recapture. With all of that said, the market will take care of this as energy prices over time rise to be...

A few states and municipalities offer tax credits and other financial incentives to developers of green buildings or buyers of green products, such as efficient clothes washers and water heaters, that might go into such buildings. New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Oregon are among states that offer significant green building tax credits. Also, a growing number of local municipalities offer incentives for green building.

Solar energy radiation incident on the surface of the earth can be conveniently utilized to meet a major part of our energy requirements. In a solar water heating system, the energy absorber is the flat plate collector measuring about 1x2 m. This flat plate collector has the capacity to absorb solar energy equivalent to about 5-6 kWH per day. Solar heat absorbed by the absorber in the collector is transferred to the water circulating inside the riser pipes bonded to the absorber assembly. The circulating water gets heated and is delivered to an insulated storage tank. Re-circulation of the same water through the absorber panel in the collector raises the temperature to 90°C(max) on a good sunny day. The entire assembly of the solar flat plate collector, inter-connecting piping and the insulated hot water storage tank makes up a solar water heating system. “Avin” offers solar water heaters either as (a) thermosyphon systems or (b) forced-flow type solar water heating systems. In a thermosyphon system water circulation is by pressure from an overhead cold water storage tank located at least a foot from the top of the outlet of the system’s hot water tank. This type is best for most applications as power consumption is nil. In a forced- flow system water is circulated by means of a water pump. This type of system is recommended where constant temperature of water is required.

Armstrong International, Inc. now offers a complete line of Instantaneous Hot Water Heaters. The Flo-Rite-Temp water heater utilizes steam as the heating medium. It is designed for applications such as; change-houses, washdown stations, process water, hospitals, etc. Flo-Rite-Temp utilizes the feed-forward principle of control thus eliminating the need for temperature sensing devices normally associated with a storage tank type system. The blending valve mounts directly on the heat exchanger thus eliminating the need for connecting piping.

Source: Instantaneous Hot Water Heaters from Armstrong International Inc

Tank water heaters cycle on and off all day, keeping 30 to 50 gallons of water at around 120 degrees, but tankless units heat only the water flowing through them when someone opens a spigot. Because of such intermittent activity and the absence of a tank to corrode, tankless units tend to last 20 to 25 years, versus 8 to 10 years for a tank heater, according to the Energy Department.

Tankless heaters, essentially a labyrinth of heating coils ...

This weekend had the water heater go bad, the washing machine die, and a mouse get stuck in the draw fan in our air conditioner, throwing it dangerously out of balance and spreading yummy mouse guts all over it to rot and stink up the house.

Fun, fun, fun!

We bought a new water heater from Lowes, and brought it to the house. Disconnecting the old one, we discovered that it had been built into it's nook, then ...

This blogger gives a full story on purchasing and installing a new water heater, along with lots of helpful pictures. He even gives notes on the Consumer Reports article on water heaters. Here's the part of the story where he buys the water heater. Click above for the entire installation.

On Friday night we pre-purchased a 40 gallon 9 year warranty Whirlpool natural gas water heater from my nearest Lowe’s. Lowe’s did not sell a 12 year warranty 40 gallon natural gas water heater.

Side note: of all the water heaters Consumer Reports tested, the only oddity it found was with the Whirlpool 40 gallon ones. CR reported that the 40 gallon 9 and 12 year water heaters’ internal stuff was identical, suggesting you don't get a better ...