Signs of Spring

I live in central Maine, one of the northernmost states in the Continental United State, bordered only by New Hampshire, Canada, and the Atlantic Ocean. It’s the beginning of April and the snow in our yard has finally all melted, a sure sign of spring. Spring is often a sign of relief for most homeowners in New England as heating costs decline with warming temperatures, windows can be opened for fresh air, and people become more active outdoors.

Classic New England weather consists of hot and humid summers, followed by brutally cold and snow filled winters. This can create quite the obstacle for home maintenance, particularly creating a comfortable indoor climate.

This article will particularly focus on heating your home’s water, especially when you live in a region with relatively cold water temperatures. Traditionally, homes had a storage tank water heater in your damp dark cellar, constantly running to heat that 40 gallons of water for use in showers, washing machines, and sinks. The hot water is used up and replaced with fresh water from the city main or well, which then needs time to heat in the tank. Hot water tanks from the factory have the ability to heat to 140 degrees but manufacturers recommend limiting the temperature to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Depending on the inlet temperature of your water source, this process can result in a relatively constant and high energy demand.

It turns out water in Maine in April is approximately 40 degrees in temperature (I’ll get to how I found this out later, unfortunately it was not something I just searched online). And here’s how I found this out…

April has traditionally been a hard month weather wise for my husband and I, with some dilemma occurring each April for the past three years we have been in our house. In April 2017, a day short of our first anniversary of moving in, our sump pump died and I came home to five inches of water in our basement. Last year, there was a similar situation in which the outlet pipe for our sump pump froze so the water was back-feeding into our basement as the sump pump tried to empty. This year, our water heater started leaking. When we purchased our home in 2016, we were told the water heater had been installed approximately 3 years prior. I know nothing about water heaters, I presumed they had a much longer lifespan, say 15 to 20 years. I was wrong, and typically water heater tanks last 8-12 years. To fix them is expensive, timely, and not likely to pay off in the long term. I’ll say, at least April is tax return season, because we ended up dropping a pretty penny on a tank-less hot water heater.

There are two types of tank-less hot water heaters: electric and gas powered (propane or natural gas). Our home doesn’t have connection to natural gas (which I personally prefer), and gas powered tank-less heaters typically cost more, especially when adding in the associated venting and piping that would needed, therefore we opted for an electric heater. We shopped around online, albeit briefly due to our leaking heater situation, and settled on a make and model based on the description we felt was sufficient for our home and could work with our existing electrical panel. However, there were a couple key details we didn’t examine closely enough that didn’t surface until we had already hooked up our new tank-less water heater.

What could go wrong, we picked a model slightly higher powered than needed, the model was beautiful and my husband is talented with plumbing and electrical work so installation was a breeze.  According to the website description, our model can heat one shower and one sink, to a temperature of 105 degrees, simultaneously in a cold climate.With just two people in our household, that is perfectly fine. However, this estimate is based on an inlet water temperature of 52 degrees. Well, according to the new system, which is able to read inlet temperature, our water source is currently 41 degrees. What does this mean? Our system was having to work harder to heat the colder water up to temperature,. Additionally, we discovered that we prefer to shower in a water temperature of approximately 115. Combined with the cold inlet water temp, we had to reduce our volume to allow the system proper flow to heat the water. Reducing the pressure also means that now we could only run one thing at a time, either the shower or the sink.

I’d like to stress here that it was our rushed research and lack of knowledge concerning our inlet water temperature and preferred outlet temperature that we experienced these issues. We love how sleek the new tank-less hot water heater is, taking up a fraction of the space that our old water heater did, how simple and serviceable the design is, and the potential energy cost savings. According to Energy.gov, homes that use up to 41 gallons of hot water per day, electric tank-less water heaters can be 24-34% more energy efficient than traditional water heaters. We have ordered the highest powered electric model the company sells, and will be upgrading our electrical service to accommodate the extra draw on top of our other usage.

What are the take aways:

• Living in regions with exceptionally cold or hot climates can make maintaining our indoor climates challenging, expensive, and less sustainable
• Colder climates may reduce the efficiency of products designed for more moderate climates, which should be taken into account when selecting make and model
• Electric tankless hot water heaters are a viable replacement for traditional tank hot water heaters, with potential for energy savings depending on your usage habits. Additionally, electric tankless water heaters have the ability to be powered with renewable energy.