Four Strategies for Making Your Smart Water Heater More Efficient
Home automation is slowly becoming more prominent nationwide because of its convenience benefits and affinity with home security systems. Among those benefits is the ability to monitor the energy consumption of your home with little as well as the hot water consumption. How well you control the hot water consumption of your home depends on how much you know about your water heater.
Made possible by companies like Rheem, water heaters as part of a home automation system use built-in Wi-Fi modules to connect to other web-enabled devices that give you access and control of the stored water.
It works by transmitting the information stored in the thermostat to the authorized user's smartphone, tablet, computer, or any device with the provider's app. This allows the user to monitor the amount and temperature of the water as well as control when to heat and reheat it.
Water heaters are the second highest exploiters of energy after HVAC units. They're responsible for 13% of your total gas and electric, therefore, knowing how and when to cut down on wasteful usage will significantly reduce your energy costs.
Strategies for Conserving Water & Its Temperature with Smart Heaters
Whether you're using gas, electric or solar to power the unit, your access and control won't be compromised. The best thing about smart heaters is that they conserve your water consumption and temperature levels outright once you install and program them to meet your preferences.
The list of strategies below can apply to traditional units but you get the best out of them when you use them with smart water heaters.
1. Reduce Your Water Heater's Temperature
Every ten degrees you add on to the heater's temperature will increase your energy bills by 3 to 5 percent. Using the smart thermostat, you can reduce this temperature with the app - 120 degrees is ideal as per the Energy Department's recommendations. Here's how to ensure the perfect temperature:
- Ensuring that the tank is working with this temperature requires that you measure the water temperature from the tap using a thermometer. It is best to rely on this method as the gauges on heaters are not always accurate, and it is always better to have another reference point.
- If the thermometer reads differently from 120 degrees, do a math problem in your head and adjust the temperature from your phone app to where you think it should be.
- Leave it and come back after two hours and the tap water should read 120 degrees or rather close to it.
- Repeat the process if need be, take a note of the arbitrary result, and you'll reap the benefits come next time you pay for gas and electric.
- Keep in mind that some water heaters have two separate gauges - one near the inflow valve and one near the outflow.
2. Reduce Your Hot Water Consumption
You can reduce your hot water consumption without taking anything away from your quality of life. Using water saving shower heads and low-flow aerators, you'll be able to use 25 to 60 percent less water without undermining your quality showers.
Perform a comparison: Take a shower as you normally would before and after adding the low-flow fixtures. Afterward, check your phone app to see the water consumption history before and after you installed them to confirm their success.
3. Don't Always Have It Running
One of the major perks of smart water heaters is the ability to set the unit to run and turn idle on a predetermined schedule. The on and off cycle, of course, can be altered whenever you deem it necessary, but the cycle of your choice is a great way of conveniently sparing your energy usage without spending too much time and mind on it.
4. Check for Leaks
Smart water heaters use the built-in sensors to perform routine check-ups on malfunctions and leaks. If a leak is detected, an alert will be sent to your phone for you to take action. Traditional heaters would have you check for leaks manually, and sometimes you won't know about it until it's too late for a simple repair.
