Submitted by movdqa t3_z21ttw in newhampshire
We have to go electric as building codes changed in my town and our chimney is too small and replacing the chimney would mean digging through three ceilings/floors. I suspect electric will cost more given where our electricity prices are going. Anyone been through this and have a rough idea of the additional costs?
I imagine that this is a problem for a lot of people with houses from the 1970s.
I installed one of these this summer and its been a great investment. The Rebate is now $750 and on average its cost me under $20 to run for a family of 4. It might be slightly higher during the cold months but you can' beat it.
Natural Gas is the cheaper option but this is the next best thing.
Sounds like you have it solved but could you have went with power vented gas heater? They vent out the wall much like furnace. They cost more initially then a regular chimney vented model.
I asked and he gave me the requirements and he was doubtful. The water heater is in the basement and is surrounded by concrete on two sides and is underground. The wall that it would have to go to is on the other side of the building so it would have to run the length of the house.
I have electric for hot water. It’s not too expensive to run. Family of 4 and we use a lot of hot water. I’d estimate it uses 4-5kwh/day. Maybe occasionally a little more. I’d bet based on what my propane heat costs it’s cheaper than propane would be.
It may be time to buy some AEP stock (they run the NG plant in Londonderry). Yield is 3.5% and they've increased their dividend quite a bit over the past three years. I feel a lot better on costs after hearing what people here pay relative to NG.
If you are single family usage ..electricity wouldn’t cost more, if there is any difference in cost it’s very minimal that you wouldn’t even notice. You can go with electric hybrid water heater with heat pump if you want to be more efficient.
Thanks. I guess we'll just go electric. Trying to see if they can do it tomorrow or else I'd need to find other accommodations until next week.
Did you talk to anybody about lining your chimney? They just stick a 6-in pipe up through the old chimney. My chimney are very old. We did have to retop one chimney. We run a furnace/hot water through one and a pellet stove through the other.
The water heater is in the basement and it runs through a metal chimney that's 3 inches in diameter. We don't have any chimneys related to fireplaces. The house has four floors. Code is 4 inches but it sounds like 6 would be a better idea.
We're going with electric. Hopefully they can do it tomorrow.
Yea not having hot water gets old fast. The joys of homeownership! Good luck
My wife is in Singapore and I can put the kids in another residence that we share but that place doesn't have internet access. I'm putting that in next week.
I plan to go electric in my new remodel. They are pretty energy efficient and there’s hybrid models that use air from the surround area to help keep the water warm
Maybe I am missing something, but other than providing the water heater with 240v power I don’t think it will be a big deal. You may have to get the electric run to it. I already had electric, but I replaced it with a 50 gal Rheem from Home Depot. Was like $530~. Electric bill doesn’t seem too crazy and it’s actually a great heater. I just got a $16k quote on my chimney and they said it’s unusable so I feel your pain. I’m lining it myself now haha. Good luck!
Plumber will install tomorrow early morning and electrician will run the line late morning. So hopefully I'll be all set by tomorrow afternoon. I'm glad these sorts of things don't happen too often.
The plumber arrive shortly after 8 AM and left at 1 PM. The Electrician was 10 AM to 12:30. They drained and took out the old unit and put in a pan and water heater in the closet. The electrician put in a new circuit across the ceiling of the basement and put in a power box in the closet with the water heater. They put in a leak detector unit which automatically shuts off cold water flow if there's water in the drain pan. It would have been nice to have the WiFi model - it sends you a text and email if there's a leak detected. We do have hot water now and what's really nice is that the water heater is silent. It's also a 40 gallon tank instead of a 30.
I spoke to another neighbor and they put in a NG tank but he has a fireplace and also doesn't have a finished basement and he said that they put in a bunch of pipes to do it and I wonder if they routed it to their chimney.
So peace of mind now.
Thanks for all of your comments.
wickedhip t1_ixfphq3 wrote
I picked up an AO Smith heat pump water heater maybe 5 years ago from Lowes. At the time I worked with plumbers who all said it was the way to go, efficient and a better overall deal rather than on demand. The NHSaves program gave me a $500 or $600 dollar rebate, which made the choice much easier. May be worth looking into.