Last week we received our last oil bill for the winter season. Despite our having locked in at a respectable per-gallon rate for oil a year ago, we ended up spending more on oil than I’d anticipated–this despite our heat-cutting measures with keeping the thermostat lower and what not. After doing some snooping around in our oil-burner room, I think I figured out how we ended up spending more on oil–our water heater.
We have an old-fashioned, oil-heated water heater. Why is this a problem? With traditional water heaters, you are paying to keep the water heated at all times, just in case someone wants to take a hot shower or run a load of laundry washed in hot (though I’m washing everything in cold these days. Ninety percent of a home’s energy costs go towards heating water, so says the Energy Star website. Granted our water heater isn’t that big–26 gallons–and it’s well insulated, in that I couldn’t feel any warmth when I ran my hands over the outside. These are all good things. But because of the very nature of water heater, that means that my oil burner will be kicking on and off 365 days a year, not just when we turn on the heat.
Naturally, being lean and green my husband and I wondered if it was time to investigate other options. For starters, if we paid over $2,000 for oil in 2007-2008, what were we going to pay in 2008-2009? Our oil company told us that it won’t be offering locked-in rates next winter, which is no surprise given the rising oil costs. So was it time to get rid of oil as a way of heating our water? Maybe, maybe not.
Turns out if we wanted to go with a solar water heater, it would cost $8,000 to install. OK, so we would make back that money in as little as four years at our current oil costs, but we kind of don’t have $8,000 to spend right now. Also, solar water heaters by their very nature require a house that gets a lot of sun (ours does) with a roof mount, which means permits. Well, permits cost a couple hundred dollars, so I need to add that cost (and the hassle factor) to the equation. One bright spot on the solar water heater horizon: the Federal government is offering tax credits for energy-efficient changes you make to your home before 12/31/08, and solar water heaters qualify.
After we’d determined that a solar water heater wasn’t going to work for our budget right now, we looked into tankless water systems. These are “on-demand” water systems that create hot water on the spot when someone turns on the hot spigot. The idea is that a pilot light comes on and heats the water as it passes over the “flame” on its way to the faucet. These are incredibly efficient ways of creating hot water and not having to pay to keep your water in waiting hot.
The downside of tankless systems? You need to have a certain kind of area in your home to put them (our crawl-space basement would work) and/or you need to install multiple tankless water heaters throughout the house to meet various demands. So even though a tankless system costs $1,500, that’s per tankless water heater. By our estimates, if our basement were right for at least one of these systems, we would need another one in the upstairs, meaning we were looking at at least $3,000 spent without hiring a plumber or maybe doing minor construction changes to make room for a tankless water heater under a sink or in the laundry room.
But the clincher for us on why this kind of water heater wouldn’t work for us was that tankless water heaters work best when heated with gas. We do not have gas. And oil isn’t compatible. So we would need to go with an electric tankless water heater, which would cost more in power and wouldn’t be as efficient.
We’re still undecided about what we’re going to do with next winter, but this back and forth about how we heat water got me thinking about when it makes sense to pay a little bit more to save a little bit more. This notion keeps coming to mind as I read about our rising grocery costs and, as we all know, the rising cost of gas. (Regular gas is just a few cents shy of $4 at our local gas station.) Here are some instances where I find myself considering the spending/saving quandary:
* Does it makes sense to buy a hybrid?
Last summer we bought a new car that fulfilled our four-wheel-drive and carpool needs, but which isn’t the most efficient with gas–it gets about 21 mph on the highway and maybe 18 in the “city.” Currently, it costs about $60 to fill up the tank, and if I’m lucky I can make it for 10-14 days on a tank of gas, thanks to all of the walking I do. My husband has a small SUV that gets similar gas mileage. We are still paying for our new car and still owe about $18,000 on it; we own my husband’s car outright. With the price of gas going up and up, we keep wondering if it makes sense to get rid of the newer car for a hybrid, which would save us about $1,800 a year in gas. Is that really worth it? (Check out the comparison charts on this Dyers.org blog on hybrids versus regular cars.) Also, just because we owe $18,000 on our car doesn’t mean that we’ll get $18,000 to trade it in. So then we wonder if we should trade in my husband’s car, but why would we want to take on another car payment (about $400 a month) to save $1,800 a year in gas?
* Should I stop driving 20 miles to ShopRite for grocery shopping?
As I written about before I’ve been using ShopRite at Home for a couple of years now, which lets me order my groceries online. I find that shopping this way, even with the $10 Internet shopping charge from ShopRite, is cheaper than shopping at my local grocery store. Case in point: milk is about $3.79 at my nearby store; last week it was $3.19 at ShopRite. However, ShopRite is about 20 minutes away, which means that I burn through three or four gallons of gas in a trip. At about $4 a gallon, that’s $16 I’m spending just to pick up my groceries. So is it still worth it to save $.60 on milk and make the trip, or do I spend a little bit more overall to shop locally and save the gas money? Also, I have to remember that my CSA begins next week, which means once a week I will be driving 16 miles roundtrip to pick up my organically grown produce.
Do you have similar “pay more to save more” quandaries that you’re currently grappling with? If so, I’d love to hear from you. Maybe together we can help each other figure out what’s best for all of us.
READ LEAH ON HOME GOES STRONG
Interesting info – I’ve been wondering about what we can do to make our water heater more efficient myself, though not enough to start doing research into tankless heaters, so that info was new to me. Thanks!
I’m glad you found the information on tankless water heaters to be helpful. Let us know if you decide to make the change and how it works out for you.
I’m also seriously considering the tankless water heater since we heat our house and our water with oil. We don’t get enough sun in the winter to make solar a good option, but we do have a gas line in the house already so the tankless might be an option.
We have a gas fireplace in our basement family room and I’m seriously considering getting a wood burning stove in the living room to heat the rest of the house most of the time. I need to get the chimney inspected first to make sure it’s in shape for the wood stove. This will require an investment, but I don’t see the price of oil coming down any time soon (if ever).
Check with your utility company about the water heater. Our has a lease program that is fairly inexpensive and it is warrented. It also has rebates for energystar stuff.
Here’s what I’ve been doing for the far away cheap stores. I have a running list of items in a Word document named for that store that I add to all the time. I go about once a month or every other to these stores-thrift, warehouse, restaurant supply, discount store. It would be harder to do this for groceries but on everything non-perishable you could plus enough perishable stuff to last until experation dates.
Pay more to save more? We’ve been thinking about the same thing, but even a step further. We’re considering owning a rental house and making green updates. Paying more for our tenants to save more.