In 2018, it was the Water Products Purchase. In 2019, it was the Laundry Filtration Installation. In 2020 it was the Solar System Setup (and the clothesline!).
It seems like every year, I make another biggish investment in some
planet-friendly home improvement, but in 2021, there was not an environment
blog post to be found! What happened? Did I give up? Had I succumbed to
the allure of conspicuous consumption? Was I just too busy riding high
on a lavish lifestyle of gas-guzzling flights around the world? (Hint:
it was still COVID. I was most definitely not).
Of
course I hadn't quit my commitment to a life of extreme green—I just
got lazy about blogging! But here I am, only 8 months after the fact,
finally getting around to telling you about my latest
eco-endeavor—switching to a tankless water heater.
This
story starts all the way back in 2016, when I first bought my house. My
memories of this period are a little hazy because I've tried to block
them out. It was a stressful 7 months of nonstop fixing
of things that I hadn't known were broken! But among the most egregious
of those things was the state of the water heater. Shortly after
closing, I do recall having to bring in the gas company for some
reason—maybe because my gas dryer wasn't running, or maybe to get the
gas turned on in the first place. In any case, when the gas man left, he
left in his wake two big red tags wired to my furnace and water heater,
reading something along the lines of "HAZARD: DO NOT USE! TO BE REMOVED
ONLY BY A CERTIFIED PLUMBER" and the gas lines leading to them firmly
shut off. I, um, removed the tags.
Well,
for at least a few days, I left the tags on and focused on regretting my
life decisions. Then I had another technician come to the house for
some other reason, and he blithely removed the tag on the furnace
without a second's thought. He was not a certified plumber. So with that
good precedent, I removed the tag from the water heater and lived with
it in its life-threatening condition for the next 5 years. I am only
telling you this now because no one died.
In
case you're curious just what made this appliance so dangerous, it was
this: The top of it was pitted with holes from years of rusting. The
flue pipe, which at one point had been affixed to the top of the tank,
now just balanced on three spindly and unattached legs, one of which had slipped into a
rust hole and caused the whole pipe to teeter out of position. I was informed that, when out
of position, it could allow combustion fumes like
carbon monoxide to escape out into my living areas. The solution, I
decided, was to make sure it stayed in position. I placed it
back in its precarious home and precariously positioned other objects around
it to help it stay upright. I also kept my carbon monoxide detector
supplied with fresh batteries at all times!
I
hoped we could limp along like this until the heater crapped out
entirely, at which point my home warranty should cover a replacement.
But after 5 years of limping, waiting with one ear cocked for the
wailing of a carbon monoxide alarm, I decided I was going to have to
take matters into my own hands and replace the water heater with my own
money.
Research-Time had arrived, and the more research I did, the more it became clear that tankless heaters are by far the most energy
efficient of the water heating options out there. Among their other benefits, they take up less space than a traditional water heater, and they never run out of hot water. Since I wasn't really hurting for space in my basement and had never run out of hot water, those weren't compelling arguments to make the switch, but in my quest to
protect the planet, it was really the only responsible choice.
Tankless
heaters are much more expensive to install than storage heaters, but I
felt confident that I would get a nice rebate in exchange, because the utility companies are always giving out rebates for Energy Star appliances. But alas! The electric company only gives out rebates for hybrid heat pump
water heaters...which aren't compatible with my basement layout. The gas company gives out rebates for tankless water
heaters, but only if you have them installed by one of their
participating installers, all of which quoted me such high fees that I'd
end up spending more even with the rebate.
Eventually
I settled on paying a cheap company full price to install a gas-powered
tankless water heater. When it was all said and done, I was underwhelmed.
Going
into the project, I'd been prepared for be the biggest downside of
going tankless: you have to run the water longer before it comes out of
the tap hot. I didn't figure that would bother me—I can have a little
patience, if it's for a good cause. But as I repeatedly stood idly next
to the shower, watching the still-cold water swirl uselessly down the
drain for what seemed like forever before I could even get in, I began to wonder: had I
just traded lower energy usage for higher water usage?
Well,
according to this handy graph from the water company, probably not.
My
new water heater was installed right about December 20, 2021. The water
usage in the two billing periods after the installation was exactly
equal to the usage in the same billing periods the year before the
installation.
On
the other hand, according to this graph from the gas company, the
energy savings from this new water heater, if any, have been negligible.
My gas usage is in fact lower than the previous year's, for almost every
billing period...but that includes all the billing periods before I even
had the new heater installed. So while I'm apparently not wasting a ton of water with the new heater, neither am I saving any money or gas.
So,
of all the eco-friendly home improvements I've implemented over the
past few years, the tankless water heater might have been the least
impactful. if I was expecting some monumental improvements in my quality
of life or my bills, I didn't get it. The much higher up-front costs
of this high-tech heater may never be offset by energy savings. And
because it operates on a computerized system, I fully expect it to fail
just out of warranty and require expensive repairs. I probably could
have done just as well or better with a new, more efficient,
storage-style heater. But, uh, at least I gained some extra floor space
behind the furnace?
