> > Question: how much of the electricity in California is used for heating
> > water for bathing and washing-up?
> >
> My source is
>
> http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/aeoref_tab.html
>
> It doesn't give just California, but in the US, 10% of the
> residential and
> about 5% of the total electricity use is for heating hot water.
> Natural gas
> is the preferred method of heating water.
Yeah, fair enough in the cooler climes, it's SOP in the UK to use gas too.
> > And this is not pie in the sky, this is standard practice in
> Cyprus, which
> > has pretty much an identical climate to California.
>
> I thought you had long streatches of days around 40C?
Don't need it. My water is hot by 7am. It's direct sunlight, not ambient
temperature. It heats my hot tank to 50 degrees (plenty hot enough...) even
on days when the temperature doesn't get above the high 'teens. Even on a
cloudy day, a 15 minute blast of the electric tops it up to toasty warm.
> Even
> after the big natural gas price hike, my gas bill was only $18.00 last
> month. I'm guessing that, including the costs of messing with my
> roof, the
> costs of installing a solar unit would run in the thousands.
�400 Cyprus pounds or so at current prices, or around USD750. My folks have
had theirs for 15 years . It has required the following maintainence in that
time:
The supplemental electric immersion heater failed once. Replaced at �15.
Every few months, someone pops up onto the roof, and cleans the glass.
It's basically a small investment to "do your bit...".
> > Surely simple conservation of energy could lower your power usage by a
> > considerable amount???
>
> Just simple conservations measures will probably not do the trick.
Yeah, I'm beginning to see that. But even a 1-2% drop in total consumer
energy usage is actually a huge amount in real terms, no?
>
> Cutting back 30% would require a massive upheaval.
Baby steps... ;o)
Charlie
