Decrease Water Heating Bills With 6 Tips For Improving Performance

If you’re like most homeowners, you would like nothing better than to find an effective way to decrease water heating bills in your Kansas City area home. You may already be keeping up with maintenance on your storage tank water heater, flushing the system of debris and getting it serviced regularly. But those bills are staying high for some reason.Before you start shopping for a new water heater, try these six low-tech, low-cost suggestions to improve your water heater’s performance and decrease water heating bills:

  • Check the environment around the water heater. If cold air is leaking through holes and gaps in the nearby walls, doors or windows, some air sealing is in order. Use caulk, weatherstripping or spray foam to seal leaks.
  • Cover the water heater with an insulating jacket or blanket to put a stop to standby heat loss in the water tank. 
  • Wrap foam pipe insulation around exposed water pipes – the water could be cooling in long expanses of pipe from the heater to the faucets.
  • Look for a cracked or broken dip tube – a plastic tube connected from the cold water intake to the bottom of the tank. If the tube is leaking, cold water could be diluting the hot water at the top of the tank.
  • Get the heating element, pilot light and thermostat checked and fine-tuned for better performance.
  • Turn the temperature on the water heater down to 120 degrees. This will save energy while still providing adequately hot water for your needs.

These simple measures could shift a low-functioning but operable water heater to one that serves up hot water like a champion – and it should decrease water heating bills.

For more expert advice about saving money by improving the performance of your water heater and other issues related to home comfort, please contact us at Overland Park Heating & Cooling. We’ll also be glad to tell you whether it’s time to replace your water heater. We’ve been serving the greater Kansas City area since 1983. 

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Overland Park, Kansas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). 

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