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Electric Resistance Water Heaters Least Expensive to Purchase Most Expensive to Operate
"Use of an electric resistance storage tank water heater is the most expensive method for heating water for your home" according to Patricia Madigan with Cornell University Cooperative Extension of Putnam County. "Purchasing an electric resistance water heater is relatively inexpensive, but paying for the electricity that type of water heater consumes in just 1 year will cost an average family about $850. And if you project that amount over the 13-year life expectancy of the heater, the total cost for electricity would be about $11,000".
What makes electric resistance water heaters so expensive to operate? ·While most electricity is produced by burning fossil based fuels, over 60% of the energy of the fuel used to produce electricity is lost to inefficiency during the generation and transmission process. This means that electricity is much more expensive to use for heating water than fossil based heating fuels. ·Using electric resistance to heat water is expensive everywhere in the United States. But New York States electric rates, the second highest in the nation at an average cost of 17.3 cents per kilo-watt hour, make this method of water heating especially expensive for New York consumers.
While natural gas, propane or oil-fired storage water heaters are more expensive to purchase and install than electric resistance heaters, they have significantly lower operating costs. And if a homeowner is willing to pay a little more to purchase an electric heat pump water heater or a solar water heater with electric back-up, even lower operating costs are available. For example, a solar water heater costs approximately $3,000 to purchase, but has a life expectancy of 20 years and costs only $260 per year to operate. If you compare long term costs of operating the solar heater to the electric resistance heater, the solar heater will reduce electricity costs by about $7,700 over a 13 year period.
An added benefit of purchasing a solar or electric heat pump water heater are the significant savings currently available from state and federal tax credits. Detailed information on federal tax credits for energy efficiency improvements can be found at www.energytaxincentives.org/ tiap-consumers.
Information on New York State tax credits is at www. t a x . s t a t e . n y.us/pdf/ memos/multitax
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