Hot Water Heaters Electric: Installing Timer

One of popular selections when it comes to water heating is hot water heaters electric. As the name implies they are powered by electricity to work. Unfortunately, the utility bills that we have to pay on operating them are not cheap. But you can improve the efficiency performance and save more energy to get lower energy bills by installing and using timer.

The function of timer will give a significant contribution for more energy saving that will make the hot water heater electric work more effectively. Some modern units may have been equipped with timer but there are also the ones that still don’t have this feature.

The installation of timer into your unit is not too difficult and even can be done on your own. Installing timer is also good idea if you think the installation of a heat trap or insulation of pipes & storage-water tank are not your choice. But this idea is not effective for gas water heater due to the pilot lights.

Consult to the local authorized utility electricity supply company to get more detailed information about a demand management project! There are some utilities that give –time of use- rates on using electricity. Then you can use this information to set and program your hot water heater electric at turn off position automatically when the electricity rate ‘time of use” is expensive.

Simple steps on installing timer on your own:

1. First, make sure the system is completely turned off. Turn off the circuit breaker, or remove the fuses (usually located in the power feeder circuit) for better safety.
2. Then determine the location to mount the timer! Make sure the position is easily to access (reachable) and also ensure the power wires will be able to reach the screw terminals. Once you have decided and determined the right location then use a proper screwdriver to screw and attach the timer on the wall. For some timer products, there may also available a set of drywall anchors. Read the manual instructions to mount the timer, because there may be a certain different instruction of each product for mounting.
3. Take a look at the power wires leading to the heater then cut them properly. In order to get the correct location on cutting, make sure you hold properly the cable up to the timer! And in order to make sure the wire is properly connected, be sure that there is adequate slack in the electrical cable.
4. (Approximately around 3-4 inches) strip back the cable assembly’s external covering by using a pocketknife. In the cable assembly, this should reveal the white, black & entirely bare copper wire.
5. Then in order to expose at least one inch for the length of the bare copper wire, strip the ends of the white & black wire insulation. Then terminate the bare copper wire into the timer controller’s screws.
6. You need two major screws that can describe and identify -line, power-feed or power-in. These are the wires from the fuses or circuit box. The second wires set should be connected or directed to the screw terminal (marked as ‘–load-‘ or ‘–to hot water heater-‘). Theses shall be the wires directing or going to the heater.
7. Take a look at the green grounding screw on the device of timer, then connect the entirely bare copper wires to it. You have to connect both entirely bare copper wires to it.
8. In addition, once again for more detailed information, don’t forget to read the manual instructions of the timer device for mounting.

The others post: Best propane wall heaters and oil filled heater (Delonghi TRD0715T)!

More tags: