Electrity Consumption Of Shower/bathroom Water Heater

[atelko]

Hi,

I am moving to a apartment that has no hot water in the bathroom.

I would buy a cheap water heater in big c, homepro or whatever and install it. the owner said it would be no problem and would be ok to do that.

but i would like to know if the electricity consumption of such a heater. I like to take a shower with hot water. even if it is really hot outside.

just dont wsnt to get a high electric bill same as before when living in a apartment.

[Lancashirelad]

Atelko, i think your 2 posts in this matter would be better placed for the information you require in the housing subsection. Maybe a mod will move it for you.

Water heaters do tend to be quite power hungry, but on the other hand, don't usually run for very long.

I don't know what consumption they run at, but at a guess lets say 6kw. That means if you run it for 1 hour, it will use 6 kilo watts. 1kw for 1 hr = 1 unit of electricity. So the cost will be 6 x bht ** that you pay for 1 unit.

More realistically, you might take a 10 minute shower. 10 mins is one 6th of an hour, so you will use just 1 unit.

You do need to make sure that the cable supplying it is of adequate guage for the consumption and is protected by a circuit breaker.

If this gets moved to the housing subsection, no doubt Crossy will be along soon to expand on that.

Edited January 28, 2010 by Lancashirelad

[ukrules]

The main thing you need to check here is the rate at which you will be charged for your electricity, will you pay your bills directly to the electric company in which case you will have a sliding scale of per unit charges based on the total units consumed, it goes up the more you use but it's pretty cheap. I haven't seen an electric bill for about a year but if I remember correctly it was between 3-4 B per unit, this is if you pay it direct to the electric company.

Some apartments will re-invoice you for the electric and you will end up paying double or even more which is profit to them as they pocket the difference. You are probably already aware of this but I thought I'd mention it just in case you weren't.

This is something that needs checking prior to renting any apartment or house along with the availability of a currently connected phone line, if it was disconnected by the previous occupant you could find yourself in for a long wait to get it reconnected again depending on local availability. This often means no internet if there's no phone line and I very nearly ended up in this situation myself.

Showers do use high amounts of electricity and often require a higher than normal rated fuse in the beaker box but as they are used for only a short amount of time this will not be the source of high electric bills.

[William Osborne]

I would be more worried about the supply being properly earthed and as said, a proper circuit breaker.

If you confirm you have a earth cable with the supply, get a shower with a ELCB (Earth Leakage Circuit Breaker), they normally have a test button so you can test if the circuit is properly grounded.

[Crossy]

Our unit is 3.5kW which gives adequately hot showers, running cost for a 10 minute shower about 2Baht.

Moving to DIY

[garyh]

You must be on a very tight budget.

[atelko]

You must be on a very tight budget.

i want to safe and cut down my expenses. was too much the last couple of months loosing money for nothing.

you know there is a nice saying: getting his firstmillion done is easy, but keeping it is the real job...

and that, my friend, is just possible to slow down a bit and keep your monthly costs to the lowest as possible. who is spending too much is either spoiled and doesn´t know that there can be 2 sides of life or is already a millionaire and is still spoiled with and in life

[longball53098]

If you want to save a few baht on the AC and the hot water then learn to live like the Thai and use a fan and water from the shower with no heater. This will save you a lot of baht. Then start buying you're groceries daily if you do any cooking and use an ice chest instead of a refrigerator. So now you can save on the electric again. Eat out at noodle shops and save more on cooking costs. There are many ways to save if you get creative. As suggested find an apartment that charges only the government rates for power and water use and save more. If you do all this the electric and water invoices will easily total less than 1,000 bat per month.

[lopburi3]

I would be more worried about the supply being properly earthed and as said, a proper circuit breaker.

If you confirm you have a earth cable with the supply, get a shower with a ELCB (Earth Leakage Circuit Breaker), they normally have a test button so you can test if the circuit is properly grounded.

That is false - the ELCB has nothing to do with grounding of the water heater and does not check that at all. It only checks for a difference in current between hot and neutral. It will not confirm the heater is grounded. Water heater should have an ELCB and a ground wire.

[powderpuff]

I don't know what consumption they run at, but at a guess lets say 6kw.

You do need to make sure that the cable supplying it is of adequate guage for the consumption and is protected by a circuit breaker.

All he needs is a hand shower. Probably closer to 3,000 watts. Rest of your post is spot on.