Residential Hot Water Heating

The Big Picture

From the School of Hard Knocks.  Last updated Nov 27, 2007

Hot water for showers, dishwashing, and other uses can account for a significant share of home energy use, particularly in the spring and fall when heating and air conditioning are lightly used.

The most common approach to residential hot water heating in the United States is a central hot water tank located in a garage, basement, or closet, with hot water pipes going to all the required faucets, showers, etc. Very large houses may have long pipe runs that result in a minute or more wait for the water to become hot. Two solutions to this include multiple hot water tanks, or a circulating loop of hot water that keeps hot water within a short distance of any faucet. Either of these may incur a significant energy and cost penalty.

The energy required for heating water depends on many factors, including the size of the hot water tank, the amount of tank insulation, the temperature setting, the placement of the tank, pipe routing, pipe insulation, flow rates on shower heads and sinks, the number of people living in the home, and the water usage habits of those people.

When building a new home you have control over many of these factors, but once the home is built then changing these can be more costly. How costly depends on the situation. If your tank and piping are in an unfinished basement, then they are reasonably accessible and easy to change. If they are in a finished basement with a sheet-rocked ceiling, then access requires tearing out sheetrock, which can be very expensive. Whenever major renovations are done, this provides an opportunity to inexpensively add pipe insulation to any exposed hot water pipes.

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