Water Heaters - My gas water heater, is it running efficiently?

I have a 8yr old A.O. Smith 40gal gas water heater, termperature output is consistant and I have it set to "B" (140f, which results in 125-130 from the outlets), my home was built in 2001 and I also flushed the tank recently and also cleaned the burner with a wire brush.

I only use 15-20 mins of hot water per day for a shower and I watch the gas meter, it tends to use .4-.5ccf per day... is this normal or would a new unit provide significantly better consumption?

nobody watches this sort of thing?

Hi ls3c6, I'm watching, just busy. In the NE I have some propane customers but no one on NG so rarely have to calculate gas BTU's. So, let's see, there are 102,000 btu's per cubic ft, so you would be using about 45,000 btu's per day for hot water. In electricity terms, at $.10 per KW, that would be about $1.00 per day. I have to convert to make sure I'm not totally in left field. If you are paying $1.00 per cubic ft, that would be $.40 or $.50 per day, so $12 to $15 per month. If a new unit would be 20% more efficient you would save $2 to $3 per month or about $30 per year.

A new water heater would have to provide a much bigger improvement than 20% to justify the investment. Some would/could be, however, your usage is relatively low, so the payback is still long. Your unit would be about 50% to 60% efficient. A new unit would be 60% to 80% efficient with the highest level being somewhat expensive.

Here is a link that can explain some of the options:
Efficient Water Heating (http://www.aceee.org/consumerguide/waterheating.htm#minimize)

My advice would be to invest in other improvements with a better payback, TBD.

Bud

None of the non-electric tank-type gas water heaters can really be called efficient. They are, however, usually the most cost-effective over their lifespan compared to the alternatives.

I think that your water heater is about average.