How to Insulate Your Water Heater: Energy Efficiency Tips

Improve effectiveness with this guide from Fredericks Fuel

A water heater is such an important part of a home. After all, without a water heater you would not have the hot water you need for showering, washing your hands, doing dishes and getting your laundry done.

Considering just how important this piece of equipment is to homeowners here in Northern New Jersey and nationwide it makes sense that you would want to do whatever it takes to help it work efficiently and effectively.

Fortunately, Fredericks Fuel has a suggestion that will help you improve how effective your water heater is – insulation! We dive into exactly why and how below.

The importance of water heater insulation

In short, insulating your home’s water tank helps improve how efficient and effective it is. Insulation accomplishes this in a few different ways.

First, it helps reduce standby heat loss. This is the heat from a water heater that becomes lost when it is just sitting in the tank and not being used.

When there is less heat loss, the overall energy efficiency of a water heater automatically improves as a result. Better energy efficiency often means cheaper utility bills as well as a reduction in the resources that are being used.

A water heater that is insulted is able to keep its water warmer for longer periods of time. This means that there will be hot water all throughout your home when there is a demand for it.

Finally, insulation can help your water heater last longer seeing as they don’t need to run through heating cycles as often as non-insulated tanks do and the amount of wear and tear is reduced.

A guide to insulating your water heater

So now that you know how the efficiency of a water heater can improve with insulation you may be asking yourself how you can go about insulating your heater yourself. Here are step-by-step directions to guide you through that process:

1. First, get your materials together. You will need someone to help you, a tape measure, a marker, scissors, an insulating blanket kit, gloves, a dust mask and electrical tape (or a similar type of type).
2. Turn your water heater off.
3. Measure how tall your water heater is and cut the blanket accordingly. Just make sure you leave the top of the water heater open so that you are not blocking the vent (if there is one) on your unit.
4. Wrap your water heater in the blanket and use tape to hold it in place.
5. Mark the areas where there are controls and then can cut the blanket around them.
6. Tape the blanket up.
7. Turn your water heater back on.

You should then be on your way to having an effective and efficient water heater in your home!

Get your water heater from Fredericks Fuel

If you are in the market for a new water heater for your Northern New Jersey home Fredericks Fuel is happy to help!

Our team of equipment experts can work with you to choose the water heater that will work best for your needs and then we’ll get it installed for you as well. We are also available for regular maintenance.

Contact Fredericks Fuel today to learn more about how we can set you up with a new water heater today.