The frugal and energy efficient water heater turned out to be not so frugal after all..

[Fumesucker]

Since I'm extremely limited on funds and I'm good at fixing the unfixable I barter my services for a lot of things I need, today's chore was an inoperative electric water heater in a neighbor's home..

This particular unit was Whirlpool energy efficient electric water heater that has a fancy electronic control unit with electronic heat sensors in it to help it conserve power.. At first view I suspected the control unit because the green LED on it that's supposed to be on when it's operating and blinking a code when it senses a problem was not lit. It took about five minutes with my multimeter to determine that the fancy electronic control unit was indeed pining for the fjords while the heating elements were still fine..

So I got on the intertrons to try and find a replacement electronic control unit for this circa ten year old water heater.. I figured it was probably futile and my suspicions turned out to be correct, the control unit is made from triply distilled unobtainum..

Now changing out a water heater is a fairly difficult process and when we started checking out the prices of replacement heaters my neighbor was in severe sticker shock.. $500 for one of this large size (big family needs lots of hot water).

After a little discussion my neighbor who has seen me bring broken items of his back to life before decided to go with my plan, buy the old style mechanical thermostats and shade tree engineer them into the water heater.. Twenty five dollars at the hardware store and a couple of hours cutting the sheet metal outside shroud on the heater to enlarge the two small element holes to fit the new thermostats and then splicing the original wiring into the new thermostats and hot water once again was flowing from the faucets..

I also fabricated new covers for the enlarged thermostat holes from scrap sheet metal and screwed them in place..

The great majority of people would have just given up and bought the new water heater but with a little ingenuity, a few basic tools and a little skill I saved my neighbor at least $450.. For my work I'll get a year of Wifi internet connection which basically will cost him nothing since he already pays for internet and doesn't begin to use the bandwidth he pays for since he mainly uses it for email, facebook and that sort of thing. I've done this particular trade with some of my neighbors before so I already have a high gain directional antenna I built that will let me pick up Wifi from a couple of blocks away so I'm golden there..

Just thought I'd put this out there as an example to my fellow frugalists of what can be done to save money on a major household appliance.

A win-win situation, both my neighbor and myself came out a long way ahead on the deal. I spent about four hours of my time to get what would cost me $400 or more through normal channels and my neighbor saved $450 or so that he couldn't really afford either.

[NYC_SKP]

1. Good job! And, BTW, I hope they use a solar thermal water pre-heater.

These are as frugal and sensible as a water heater can be.

Then don't provide all the water all the time at the high temps needed, but they sure payback quickly and reduce the energy load on the energy-burning heater.

[Curmudgeoness]

2. Triply distilled unobtainum!

Good job. I wish I had someone like you around here!

[Fumesucker]

3. Have Screwgun-Will Travel..

[Kaleva]

4. Hopefully you safety checked the mechanical t-stats after the job was done.

That you measured the temp of the body of the water heater right next to where the mechanical water thermostat mates to the body of the water heater to make sure the t-stat opens within a reasonable range of the temp you read and you do that for both the upper and lower thermostats. I can put an adapter on my Fluke meter on which I can then hook up three different temperature probes. One for liquids, the other for air and the last for checking surface temperatures. And also make sure the wiring is correct by checking to ensure only one t-stat is closed during a call for heat at a time. I'd also would have done an amp draw check on the water heater when first one thermostat and then the other is calling for heat and I'd check the temperature of the hot water coming out of the faucet nearest the water heater after the t-stats on the heater are satisfied and open.

The main point of your OP is excellent. One can barter one's skills and time in exchange for something you need and thus save money. By doing what you did, you not only saved your neighbor a good size chunk of cash but you saved yourself a bunch too. As you said, it was a win-win situation.

[Fumesucker]

5. Yes, the thermostats are working as they should..

I have a IR remote thermometer that I used to check the tank temp before I fastened the new covers down. Verified the voltage across the heating elements to determine correct operation of the thermostats..

Then measured the faucet water temp with an HVAC thermometer..

When I went to check the amp draw with my clamp on ammeter the 9v battery was dead, I haven't used it in a while. Everything else checked out, the voltage drops seemed consistent so I didn't worry about it. The heater was working fine before the electronic control module died.. We had a thunderstorm the night before, I think it was a voltage spike on the power line that took out the module in the first place..

[Kaleva]

6. Yes, voltage spikes are hell on high efficient water heaters, boilers and furnaces.

I worked on such for years and often told people that it wasn't going to be cancer or a heart attack that will do me in but what a homeowner did to their heating system or water heater that will kill me.

One homeowner had put in his own furnace and had run new wiring to the furnce from his circuit breaker panel and for some reason made the white wire the hot wire but hooked up the black wire to the fuzed disconnect on the furnace. I found out about that the hard way.

Another guy bypassed the fuze and swtch in the fused disconnect on the furnace which made it a junction box but silly me, I assumed it was still a fused disconnect when I started working on the furnace.

A customer called me up and said his carbon monoxide in his basement was going off every so often. I went over there and quickly narrowed down the problem to the water heater he recently installed himself being natural gas altough he had LP gas and it was sooted up to the point the flue was blocked.

In order to save money on fuses which kept blowing on his furnace, a homeowner decided to put in a 30 amp fuze instead of the 20 amps that kept blowing. The good news for him was that his 30 amp fuse was good but the bad news was that it cost him a chunk for me to replace the burnt wiring and electrical controls on his furnace.