News

Several readers have asked how to separate their Hot Water Expense from their Space Heat Expense.

The notes below might help:

• The US Dept of Energy estimates that, on average, one active adult uses 20 gallons of hot water (at 120oF) each day, and that a child, or a non-working senior, uses ten gallons.
• It takes about 500 BTUs to heat one gallon of water to 120 degrees.
• So, one active adult uses about 3,650,000 BTUS per year for hot water, and a child or retired senior uses about 1,825,000 BTUs.
• We leave it to you to calculate the results for the number of occupants in your house.
• The next challenge is to convert BTUs to dollars. If you open “Fuel Cost” in the menu on the left side of PopularEnergy.org, you will see how many BTUs per dollar you can get from your type of water-heating fuel.
• Just be sure that you use the price that you are paying now in the simple equation there. Then, divide your household’s total hot-water BTUs by the number of BTUs that you are getting for one dollar.
• If you have average habits of use, that will show you how much of your total fuel bill goes into hot water.

Please let us know how well your result from this method compares with other methods of estimating that you may have used. franergy@verizon.net.