Barf: [Spaceball 1 roars by them, in a plaid colouration of speed] Aah!
Barf: What the hell was that?
Lonestar: Spaceball 1.
Barf: They've gone to plaid!
Or rather, "It's" gone plaid. That would be my electric meter. Since we moved in something has been bugging me. It's my hot water heater. I was outside raking leaves once or doing something and I was near the electric meter and it was spinning faster that some kids' toy top. I went through my breakers one by one until it stopped and the culprit turned out to the be hot water heater. Of course - you'd suppose this, but what killed me was I don't use all that much hot water, so for it to suddenly come on in the middle of the day when it really wasn't even that cold out - and not just on, but on with a vengeance. It's a quick recovery heater so it really kicks in to get to and maintain the temperature. Well - that hurt me and my pocketbook (if I carried a pocketbook - Jamie has a purse, but I don't think that's a pocketbook. You'd think a pocketbook would just be a book - maybe a paperback).
I probably forgot about it for a while, but my electric bills really are outrageous. I don't think they are until I'm talking to someone and they say "HOLY COW! THAT'S HIGH!" and then I go away shaking my head and I think "Hmm... Water Heater...!". Finally after a few years, I opened up the access covers and lowered the temperature from "ABSOLUTE MAX - 125 - DANGER!" which is what the previous owners had set it at down to about 115 - maybe 110. I mean, really - I always hated burning my hands anyway every time I turned on the hot water. This would be better. Believe it or not - it was, and it was practically unnoticeable in the shower as not many people need to blast off grime with a full 125 degrees.
My bill went down - noticeably. So here it is a few years later and I was paying the @%#$^ bill which included my August air-conditioner usage and I started thinking about that hot water heater again. I don't know why I thought of it, but I recalled that people used to put timers on them. I mean, why keep it crazy hot 24 hours a day when we only take a shower in the morning? 24 hours of hot water for 20 minutes of showers - ugh!
I looked them up on Amazon, and sure enough there is a nice one for about $35. I didn't order it because I was going to look nearby first. Lowes didn't have it and neither did Home Depot. I think Home Depot did have it on their web site, just not locally. I kept meaning to call my local hardware store, but just didn't get around to it. I kicked myself for that since if I had ordered it the day I found it, it would have already been here. Today we were running errands and I had to go to the hardware store (we have a kick-ass hardware store, btw - they've been around forever and they have just about everything I've ever gone in there to get), so while there I asked about water heater timers. "Oh, yep - they are right over here."
Crazy, really. There it was for only $29, and I didn't even have to pay shipping. I came home and put it right on (because I'm handy like that). What's ironically funny is the homeowners before me hooked up their water heater with just wire nuts and the wires were just hanging out like that all these years - so I solved two problems by adding the switch. Now there are no more wires hanging out - no more wire nuts sticking out - no covers missing. The covers are in place, the timer is in place and everything looks great. I set it to come on at 5:45am and go off at 8:30am - the other 21 hours and 15 minutes, it's on it's own.
Take that, power company.
