dgage said:Yeah Ano, you don't have a heating problem, you have a cooling problem. So lets talk about how much you have to spend for cooling? J/K.![]()
SteveQ said:'Lou Apo' timestamp='1365125428' post='193756']How about this. Put a "T" fitting on your hot water tank outlet. Thread the T fitting in with the long axis up and down so you have a straight shot into the tank from the top. Use the side port for your water to the house. Use the top port to thread that thermometer. A solar powered manual gauge is not quite what I was looking for. I wanted something that I could connect to my home automation system. I can manually measure the water temperature by opening the sillcock about 3feet from the water heater and sticking a thermometer in the outflow. Installing a tee fitting on the top of my water heater is a major issue; a lot of soldering would be required. I don't really need to know the temperature, do I? Steve Q
dgage said:Yeah Ano, you don't have a heating problem, you have a cooling problem. So lets talk about how much you have to spend for cooling? J/K.![]()
SteveQ said:This is cool, thanks for finding it. Still requires a lot of changes to my water heater connections but would fit nicely into my current temperature monitoring setup. I'm not sure there would be much benefit for me to try to regulate the hot water temperature. I think my faucets and shower valves do that already. The dishwasher has a built in water heater so no need there. Perhaps the washing machine might benefit but we never use the "hot" cycle. If the water was hotter, we could take longer showers but we are trying harder to do just the opposite. So, I think I will leave things just the way they are now. I'm happy! Steve Q
ano said:AC is another story. :blush: Wonder if they make a hot water cooler?
We had work done on our gas lines last year and the gas was turned off. It was the 3rd night before I noticed that the pilot light had to be relit, and that was after my wife and I showering each day and the kids' bath each night.jdale said:We've had some long power outages here. You can still take a hot shower 24 hours after the power has gone out. Just not a really long one.
I'm all for more efficient cooling - we're about to enter the time of year when my electric bill jumps up to $800-$900/month trying to cool a 6yr old 4K sq ft home... The Whole House Fan paid for itself in 2 months but when it never gets under 74° outside, it's worthless; and we're hole all day so we really have no choice but to run the AC!dgage said:Yeah Ano, you don't have a heating problem, you have a cooling problem. So lets talk about how much you have to spend for cooling? J/K.![]()
SteveQ said:The problem with heating and cooling is that we always heat and cool more than what is really needed. For example, I have a 50 gallon water heater but I hardly ever use 50 gallons of hot water per day (only when we have guests). But I specifically installed a bigger water heater so I could have enough extra capacity to handle extra showers. It would probably have been better to have installed 2 smaller tanks and just turn on the second tank when guests are coming. I've done quite a bit of bathroom remodeling over the years and for one I designed a shower that included full body sprays. When I did the calculations on water requirements, it turned out the shower would have used 50 gallons of hot water in 8 minutes. The manufacturer recommended 2 - 80 gal water heaters! So we changed the design from 6 body sprays to 2. Central air conditioning is a similar issue. We want to cool our entire house but we we only live in a small part of it. Open floor plans and vaulted ceilings make the problem worse. Again, it would be better to have multiple smaller AC units to cool only the living space we really need. As much as I hate window AC units, I installed one last year in our upstairs bedroom. It was the only affordable/ practical way to get more cooling upstairs. We don't have to use it much and I was able to integrate it into my home automation system so I can turn it on remotely when needed. Steve Q