Turn Hot Water Heater Off When Leaving

This is a money saving tip. I shut off my hot water heater upon leaving my house. When I get back home, I flip the breaker switch back on and have hot water in less than 10 minutes. No one is here to use it and it saves big on the electric bill.

By Judith from Huntsville, AL

Editor's Note: This sounds like a interesting tip. I know that shutting down your water heater is often recommend if you are leaving for a prolonged vacation. One thing you should do regardless, is make sure that your water heater and pipes are well insulated so that the water retains more heat as it stored in the heater and travels through the pipes.

There may be a safety concern with turning on and off a gas water heater regularly. With either gas or electric, you may want to call your utility company and see if they can see any safety problems with this tip. It should be pretty easy to track whether this is saving you money by comparing your current power bill to the previous years.

Answers:

Turn Hot Water Heater Off When Leaving

Wouldn't it be just as easy to turn down the thermostat as I don't think it's a good idea to keep turning it off and on. I have a gas one and when I am out all day, I will lower it that way. It's still keeping the water warm but not kicking on so much. I am a widower and on a fixed income and with the price of gas affecting everything, I have to cut a lot of corners but do it safely. (05/08/2007)

By margaret, TX

Turn Hot Water Heater Off When Leaving

We have a gas water heater and turn it down to pilot when we are gone. When we return we turn it back to on, this is easier and we don't have to worry about restarting the pilot ligh. We also shut the water off at the main shut-off to prevent water damage if we should have a water pipe break while we are away. (05/09/2007)

By Guest

Turn Hot Water Heater Off When Leaving

I would think you would not want to follow this tip IF you have a gas water heater. A few weeks ago my hubby was doing some renovation work in the laundry room and unplugged our gas water heater. A while later I told him I could smell gas in the house. He has a terrible sense of smell and kept insisting it must be coming from outside or perhaps it was some cleaner bottle that had broken when he was moving things around.

We both went out for the day, and when we got home noticed we had no hot water. It was then he remembered having unplugged the water heater. This was 8 hours later! The gas smell was quite strong by then, so we had to open all the windows and clear the air. Thankfully we had gone out and nothing worse happened. (05/13/2007)

By W. Tina Chase