Many water heaters come preset at 140° F, but for most purposes 120° F is perfectly adequate. Lowering your water heater thermostat to 120°F will reduce the risk of being scalded by water coming out of the tap, as well as reducing your energy costs by 3-5%.
To save your 3-5%, start by turning your water heater down to 120°. If you don’t like it and want hotter showers, or if your household goes through a large amount of hot water over a short period of time and you run out of hot water, turn the water heater up a tiny bit and use it that way for a few days. Continue until it’s at a comfortable temperature.
-
Setting your water heater temperature
- Go take a look at the temperature knob on your water heater. If your temperature dial has actual numbers, you’ve got it easy – just turn the knob to 120°.
- Unfortunately for most of us, our water heaters don’t have numbers on the temperature dial. We need to look in the owner’s manual to decipher the cryptic symbols on the temperature dial. I keep all my manuals together in a file folder, but the previous owners didn’t leave the manuals for us. Google to the rescue! I just googled my water heater’s brand and model number, and was able to download a pdf of the manual. In case you’re having trouble tracking down your manual, the most common temperature dial configurations are as follows:
- Some dials go from ‘warm’ to ‘hot’, with a ‘▲’ usually indicating 120°.
- Other dials go from ‘warm’ to ‘hot’ with a longer tick mark which usually indicates 130°F, rather than 120°. So helpful. Especially when you only can find this out by looking in your owner’s manual.
- Cost: free!
- Time: less than 10 minutes
- Annual Savings: 3-5% off your energy bills
- Payback time: instantaneous
6 comments ↓
found your site on del.icio.us today and really liked it.. i bookmarked it and will be back to check it out some more later
great post as usual!
found your site on del.icio.us today and really liked it.. i bookmarked it and will be back to check it out some more later
Hey there! Do you use Twitter? I’d like to follow you if that would be okay. I’m absolutely enjoying your blog and look forward to new updates.
I have read a few good stuff here. Definitely worth bookmarking for revisiting. I surprise how much effort you put to make such a great informative web site.
I think this is one of the best things I have read. I’m chuffed that I saw your article. Can I point out a few things, The web site style is ideal, the articles are really great!
. Good job, thanks!
Leave a Comment