We’ve been without hot water since friday night. An inspection of the water heater reveals a tank that is leaking internally and a pilot which refuses to light.
Everyone is afraid to call the landlady because she is a horrible person. She will scream and yell at us and insist that it’s somehow our fault even though the heater isn’t even in our apartment.
Anyway, trying to research whether I could possibly do it myself, I see that gas water heaters are up to ~$600. I know this woman very well – I am certain she will buy an electric one because they’re ~$200 cheaper but I’m afraid that will make our bill shoot through the roof. It’s already just barely where we can handle it.
Has anyone had both kinds, and noticed a difference?
Replacing it with a electric unit would require a running of a 220V electric line. Doing that professionally would be more then the $200 you are stating and perhaps around that much to do it oneself. It is far easier and faster to just replace gas with gas and electric with electric then convert.
Also if the house has 100 amp or less service it may not be possible to install a electric water heater without upgrading the electric service which can run in the thousands.
Adding it would be foolish on her part to convert to electric both from a rental standpoint and a home resale value standpoint. It would be hurting her in the long run.
Yes, electricity typically costs more per delivered btu than gas. The actual difference will obviously depend on the local rates for each.
How is the gas that supplies the current water heater paid for? The fact that the heater isn’t in your apartment suggests it’s included in the rent, or these’s some sort of sharing arrangement. And it implies that a new, electric water heater wouldn’t necessarily be connected to your meter.
Just as another point of information, I’ve had both types of water heaters, and the major difference is that the gas-fired ones heat up faster. I have never run out of hot water in this house with a gas water heater, but I have in the past with similarly sized electric ones. I can’t directly speak to costs, since I tend not to track such things (not rich, just lazy! :D), but I’m certain that almost everywhere gas will be significantly cheaper as well as heating faster.
kanicbird makes a great point. If the landlord is cheap there is no way they’re going to pay for an electrician to run a new 220v line for an electric unit.
We had a new house built last year and it wasn’t until after the closing that we figured out that we had no hot water. It was also then that I realized after looking for the pilot light reset that they had outfitted the house with an electric unit.
The builders came out and concluded that somewhere in the construction process somebody had cut the 220 line. Now it was somewhere buried behind the drywall (built on slab). They looked pretty pissed off trying to figure out how to run a new 220 line without having to tear finished painted sheetrock down for as little expense as possible until I told them I’d be prefectly fine with a gas unit which would be a snap for them to hook up since it sat about 2 feet away from the gas furnace.
Apparently there is already one electric water heater for another unit, so whatever wiring necessary has already been done. The units all have separate meters, fuse boxes, and water bills.
The power bill is complicated to parse, but I would say that electric typically tends to be three times that of gas. So replacing X units of gas with X units of electric is gonna cost. Yikes.
A timer can help with electric water heaters if your household has a schedule of getting up, showering, going to work and not using much hot water in the evenings. Water holds its heat well, and you can set the timer to keep the power off most of the day. Some electric utilities even provide discounts and the timers for this.
There are a few moving parts to your question you need to isolate before any answer can be definitive
Instantaneous (on demand flow) or Storage (large tank) heaters?
Daily/monthly Supply charges for both gas and electricity?
Are there other gas using appliances in the house (obv. you have other electrical loads).
Unit cost of each utility (kw/H, PJ, BTU, etc)
Ambient temperature conditions.
Are there variable electrical tariffs based on time of use (heat hot water at night with cheaper power).
Local or state incentives for energy efficient appliances?
If hot water heating is the only gas user in the house, it’s highly likely disconnecting gas and replacing with an electric heater would be cheaper as you can discount any fixed gas utility supply charges. If the ambient temperature is generally above freezing, an electric heat pump would be even better. Heat pumps have fantastic CoP.
Although electricity is pretty cheap we have an oil-fired tank because it heats much faster than electricity. We heat the house partly with electricity and partly with oil. It switches automatically to oil when the outside temperature hits -12 C. At the same time the cost of electricity triples. The rest of the time, we get a 20% discount on our electricity for having this arrangement.
This reminds me that both gas and electric water heaters should have an Energy Star sticker on them that details the annual energy cost based on some assumptions. The OP could visit the local Home Depot (or website) and do some comparisons between comparable models.
But they need to put in a dedicated circuit from your fuse box to your new water heater. They can’t use the same circuit used for the other unit.
It’s almost certain that she’ll go with a straight replacement, because she’ll have to pay two service men to change it to electric, and only one to keep it as gas.