Propane Water Heater

[maritimer]

Does anybody run propane to heat their water?
I've read, that by using a propane water heater and a propane range/stove, it can drastically reduce your electricity consumption. The fact that you can have hot water if the power is out alone would be a great feature, but the added efficiency sounds appealing as well.

[Admin]

I have always had a propane water heater. We have one now but it's been shut off for most of the winter. Yes a propane water heater will continue to heat water when the power goes out, but only if it's a direct vent or chimney vented one and it runs on a pilot. The power vented ones have a fan to exhaust the gases and if the fan don't start up the electronic ignition won't light. If you want to save money on heating water, get an old water heater or some other tank. Set this tank up so that your working water heater will draw from the auxillary tank. This is called a tempering tank and it allows you to have resivior of room temperature water to replace what is being drawn from your hot tank. Room temp water heatss up faster than cold water coming from the gorund so therefore your water heater will run for a shorter time. Some folks have their tempering tank near their woodstove or have a solar heater. There's a million methods of preheating water out there. Some pretty cool ideas on you tube.

[watershedman25]

We put an "on demand" in the cabin, it has to have electric to ignite but there is no pilot of course and if we don't go there for a month it will burn $0. We unplug it in case of lightening. They aren't cheap but if you don't use any hot water for a yr. it doesn't cost anything, I'm thinking it will pay for itself.
We have an outside wood burner at home. I still like some of JC's ideas.