Ga$

For those of you who eagerly read the blog title, thinking it's about Mark, I'm sorry to disappoint you but the gas of which I speak is of the natural variety, the kind from which we derive energy. The useful kind.

On June 16th of last year, I mentioned in a blog that my water heater had stopped working. At the time, I thought the pilot light had simply gone out and was proud of myself (ha!) for figuring out how to relight it.

But, as it turned out, the next day my water was cold again, and so again I relit the pilot light.

This is a process I've repeated for the 275 days since then. Each day I revive my water heater and, after heating my water to the appropriate temperature, the pilot light goes out, never to be bothered to heat again until I repeat the ritual the following morning.

My alarm goes off, usually somewhere between 5:30 and 6:00. I (eventually) stumble out of bed, step my way in the dark through the obstacle course that is my living room (those of you in the know will understand what I mean), make my way to the garage, fumble around for the light switch, kneel down by the water heater, hit the igniter to light the pilot and hold it down for a while, look to my left at the spider who, amazingly, is still living at the bottom of the garage steps (oh my she has gotten big these last few months!), and then get up, my knees creaking as I, for the 275th time, curse myself for being so dumb as to not get this fixed. Rather than call my landlady and ask her to get someone to resolve the situation, I wake up at least a half hour earlier than I have to every morning so that I can relight the pilot light and give the water time to heat up.

One reason other than sheer laziness and a general desire to just see what happens that I've not had my water heater fixed is because I've had the notion that I'm saving money by only heating my water once a day. I generally only need hot water for my morning shower. Occasionally I need it for doing laundry or (*throat clearing sound*) doing the dishes, but generally my morning shower is all I need hot water for. Could I possibly save money by heating my water only once a day, rather than keeping it hot all day long even though I don't use it?

Since I have so much free time, I performed an analysis of my gas bills, comparing the months when I had a functioning water heater to these more recent months since last June when I haven't. And the results are quite compelling.



From the time my water heater broke to the present (mid-June '06 through mid-March '07), I have spent $358.43 on my gas bill. In the same time period prior to the breakdown of my water heater (mid-June '05 through mid-March '06), I spent $488.03. That's a savings of approximately 27%. This past month, for example, I used 36 therms, and for the same time period last year I used 56 therms.

Not convinced? Looking at the summer months to help control for cold weather, I used 21 therms of gas for mid-June through mid-September in 2006, after my water heater broke down. For the same time period in 2005, I used 49 therms.

The lesson? Get an on demand, tankless water heater.