Gas / Propane water heater setback controls

[bsobel]

I had a QuarterBack II device on my guest house water heater for years (found one on eBay while you still could). I've been searching for a replacement ever since it died. I finally found a simple reliable and very easy to install unit from http://gaswaterheatertimer.com Unit runs about 80 and takes seconds to install. An appliance module will run it just fine. I currently have 3 installed and am extremely happy with them. I don't have any relationship with the company (other than being a customer) but it seemed right up the alley of the others here so I wanted to share.

 

Best,

Bill

[arw01]

How much do you figured you saved not running the heater in off hours vs. the loger time it takes to come to temp when it comes back on?

[johnnyt]

Interesting. Thanks for posting. Not clear to me how it would work. Send ON to appliance module to turn heater up and send OFF to turn it down? Doesn't seem quite that straightforward and didn't find a link to the manual. Can you explain how you've set it up?

 

 

Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

[bsobel]

To the first question I've put these at vacation homes so the payback is much more direct. They claim good savings even on a daily basis but I haven't tried that as my primary is on solar.

 

To the install you are correct. An on causes the unit to activate and turn the thermostat up and and off turns it back down to pilot mode. Very easy to then program when to do that with the ISY.

[johnnyt]

To the install you are correct. An on causes the unit to activate and turn the thermostat up and and off turns it back down to pilot mode. Very easy to then program when to do that with the ISY.

Is there a way to reverse that? Just wondering about getting hot water (at home) when power is out. My tank isn't power vented so doesn't need electricity but would if I put on one of these and can't make it work the opposite of the above (appliancelinc ON for low). Thanks.

[bsobel]

To the install you are correct. An on causes the unit to activate and turn the thermostat up and and off turns it back down to pilot mode. Very easy to then program when to do that with the ISY.

Is there a way to reverse that? Just wondering about getting hot water (at home) when power is out. My tank isn't power vented so doesn't need electricity but would if I put on one of these and can't make it work the opposite of the above (appliancelinc ON for low). Thanks.

 

Not reversible that I know of but since its power run it requires power to change state meaning if you were in a 'on' mode and the power goes out it would stay in heating mode. The issue would be if you were in an 'off' mode and power was out the motor would not activate to turn you to 'on' mode.

[apostolakisl]

How much do you figured you saved not running the heater in off hours vs. the loger time it takes to come to temp when it comes back on?

 

Everything I have read on the subject would indicate that turning the tank off and on within the same day results in almost no energy savings. Basically it uses almost as much energy to heat the water back up as it would have used to just to keep it hot the whole time. The energy savings doesn't really kick in until after the tank has finished cooling down and is just sitting there at that cooler temp for days or weeks on end.

 

However, in a vacation home where you turn it off for days or weeks at a time it does make a difference. But you could turn it on/off manually pretty easily. So really the bonus with a device like this is that you can remotely turn it on so that once you arrive you have hot water. Also, you can turn it off remotely if you forgot.

[johnnyt]

To the install you are correct. An on causes the unit to activate and turn the thermostat up and and off turns it back down to pilot mode. Very easy to then program when to do that with the ISY.

Is there a way to reverse that? Just wondering about getting hot water (at home) when power is out. My tank isn't power vented so doesn't need electricity but would if I put on one of these and can't make it work the opposite of the above (appliancelinc ON for low). Thanks.

 

Not reversible that I know of but since its power run it requires power to change state meaning if you were in a 'on' mode and the power goes out it would stay in heating mode. The issue would be if you were in an 'off' mode and power was out the motor would not activate to turn you to 'on' mode.

 

Sorry, I'm a bit confused. If powering an appliance module ON turns the heat up and powering it OFF turns the heat down, doesn't a power outage, which, in effect, turns the appliance module OFF, return the setting to low? Are there two plugs, i.e. one for device and one for timer?

 

Thanks for the info.

[LeeG]

It is a motor driven valve controller. No power means the motor cannot change the valve setting.

[apostolakisl]

How much do you figured you saved not running the heater in off hours vs. the loger time it takes to come to temp when it comes back on?

 

Everything I have read on the subject would indicate that turning the tank off and on within the same day results in almost no energy savings. Basically it uses almost as much energy to heat the water back up as it would have used to just to keep it hot the whole time. The energy savings doesn't really kick in until after the tank has finished cooling down and is just sitting there at that cooler temp for days or weeks on end.

 

However, in a vacation home where you turn it off for days or weeks at a time it does make a difference. But you could turn it on/off manually pretty easily. So really the bonus with a device like this is that you can remotely turn it on so that once you arrive you have hot water. Also, you can turn it off remotely if you forgot.

 

Just got back from visiting a friend in Colorado. He has a ski condo. We were doing some automation of the place so he could set the place down when not there but have it up to temp just before he arrived.

 

It is 100% electric with electric resistance base board heat. Talk about an expensive way to heat. Anyway, we came to the conclusiong that there was no point in shutting the hot water off at all. The hot water tank would just be serving to help keep the place at 55 (which is where he sets it when away) and would be essentially the same efficiency as the electric resistance base board heat. So, it is pretty much an either/or situation where both either and or are about the same efficiency.

 

The base board heaters each have their own thermostat on the base board itself (a pretty crude way of doing it, but the place is 30 years old). There is one bank of radiators that has a wall thermostat. We use that bank to keep the place at 55 when away by simply manually turning it to 55 when leaving.

 

We put a j-box next to the main breaker panel and ran all the wires that go to the other base board heaters through that box. In the j-box, we put relays that a cai webcontrol board manages. All the other radiators local thermostats are left at 70. By themselves, all these other radiators are sufficient to get the place warmed up. So by simply flipping the relays on to all those radiators, the place is warm upon arrival.

 

We also used the cai boards thermostat to monitor the place and flip on some of those other radiators if the place gets too cold as well as send an email.

 

And lastly, we put a powered shut off valve for the water that closes down when in away mode just in case a pipe should freeze and crack.

[KenN]

Everything I have read on the subject would indicate that turning the tank off and on within the same day results in almost no energy savings. Basically it uses almost as much energy to heat the water back up as it would have used to just to keep it hot the whole time. The energy savings doesn't really kick in until after the tank has finished cooling down and is just sitting there at that cooler temp for days or weeks on end.

 

Further to that, I've also heard that the small temperature swings from these daily heating/cooling cycles can cause premature failure of the hot water tank from all the thermal expansion and contraction. I did a slug of research into this recently and decided there was a lot more to be gained by insulating all my exposed hot water piping.

[apostolakisl]

Everything I have read on the subject would indicate that turning the tank off and on within the same day results in almost no energy savings. Basically it uses almost as much energy to heat the water back up as it would have used to just to keep it hot the whole time. The energy savings doesn't really kick in until after the tank has finished cooling down and is just sitting there at that cooler temp for days or weeks on end.

 

Further to that, I've also heard that the small temperature swings from these daily heating/cooling cycles can cause premature failure of the hot water tank from all the thermal expansion and contraction. I did a slug of research into this recently and decided there was a lot more to be gained by insulating all my exposed hot water piping.

 

 

I've heard that too. But am a bit skeptical based on the fact that regular use of the tank seems like it would be more stressful and would happen on a very regular basis. Every time you draw off some hot water, water as cold as 40 degrees (depending on where you live) starts pouring into the tank.

 

Insulating the pipes is a fine idea, especially if you live somewhere where you are normally cooling your house. If you are heating your house most of the year, then really the heat escape from the pipes is just relieving your hvac system of its duties. Also depends on where your pipes run, unconditioned crawlspace vs within walls/floor joist spaces between conditioned rooms.

[KenN]

True, the cool water that replaces hot water drawing off will dip the temperature, but I make the assumption that for most uses it is a small volume of new, cooler water with respect to overall tank size so likely a small dip in temperature. Of course, filling a large bath or several showers in succession will drop the temp (as I'm sure we've all experienced!)

 

I fall into your last group - our hot water tank is in an unheated basement closet, surrounded by concrete foundation (with some in-wall insulation) on three sides. Also, our system has a hot water holding tank that is heated by an in-line gas heater through a glycol circulating loop. Lots of exposed 1" pipe in the room, so I suspect most of that heat is radiated from these pipes. I started wrapping them last night, so we'll see how things change!

 

Our tank is new (about a year old) and apparently very well insulated. Exterior of the tank is cool to the touch at any given time, so I can't imagine there's a significant amount of heat escaping from it.