Are You In Hot Water?
THIS hot water would be pretty fabulous, assuming you could make the dash from the house to the hot tub and back without freezing… But what I am really getting at is a Federal law (the National Appliance and Energy Conservation Act - NAECA) that mandates higher energy efficiency for all home water heaters manufactured after April 16, 2015, that you may not find out about until it costs you money. Since providing hot water in homes represents a big part of a home’s average energy consumption, it certainly sounds like a great idea to save money and energy, plus it is part of the government’s efforts to make the US more self-sufficient energy-wise. The phased improvement mandates actually started in 1990. So what’s the big deal? While the added insulation adds some cost to the units, the REAL problem comes because the new 2015 water heaters are LARGER than the previous models of the same capacity. With diameters and heights of many water heaters increasin...