POD 6-2-21 WP SudsMiser

[tomturbomatic]

Electric water heating was very expensive. Customers who had it, like if they had oil heat were given a bit of a break with the second meter at a lower rate, but it might have been a time of use meter which only allowed the water heater to operate at off peak hours or recorded the time of use and really stuck customers if they used it during other times. I remember my father telling me about that in the house in Grand Ridge with oil heat. He said they tried it with demand water heating and it was very expensive. Then they tried it with off peak heating and there was no hot water all day. That was the house where I got to stand on the little stool and hold the cold water hose to fill the Kenmore with cold water for the deep rinse. Maybe they had one of those meters. He said he met the digging crew with presents when they laid the gas lines down the street. Remember our discussion about the POD ad for the TOL Norge washer with the clock so the washer could turn on at off peak hours?

I don't know why there were not more oil water heaters, just mostly electric if there was no gas. Oil was very fast for water heating, but might have been dirty. Maybe gas service was promised in a reasonable amount of time to my paper route customers when they bought the houses.

John told me about the off peak rates in Elkhart, IN that were something like 3 cents a KWH. With solar and other technologies like heat pumps and the systems that heat water with the waste heat of the Central AC, water heating costs can be reduced.

 

[tomturbomatic]

A post from someone who remembers having one

Our house when I was growing up had two meters, one was for the electric water heater. The one for the water heater used a timer so it only ran during non-peak periods for a lower rate (this was in the 1950s, by the way, so off peak electrical setups aren't anything new.)

 

[jeb]

demand meter

My father installed a 220 demand meter that only allowed 1 220 appliance to run at a time. if you ran the dryer the stove and hot water heater would not work. if you ran the stove the dryer and hot water heater would not work ect, If mom ran a load of clothes in hot water then put them in the dryer no hot water for next load (or anything else. If she was cooking had to remember to start dryer when done. I remember her getting large kettles of water hot on the stove so she could have hot water to clean with and run the dryer.

 

[tomturbomatic]

That sounds like the Green Acres electrical situation which was so believable for someone with as much money as Oliver was supposed to have had while living in that dump.

Could your father not put in gas appliances if he was worried about the amount of electricity the household used?

 

[launderess]

Am no expert, but believe oil water heaters run hotter (due to nature of fuel), and thus have shorter lifespan than gas or electric. The intense heat does a number on units, but it varied by model then and now. Some last long as gas or electric tank units, others not so much.

It varies by type of oil, but the lower grades are pretty much like bunker fuel, and thus nasty to burn. Creates lots of soot and other by products that cause unit to require more maintenance than cleaner burning gas or electric. If you don't do the maintenance unit will have shorter life span and or operate with lower efficiency.

Many homes using oil for heating (steam or hot water) just used either a side arm or coil boiler for unlimited "tankless" hot water for "free".

 

[circlew]

The first two or three years after we moved into this house in 1957, the hot water came from the oil-fired boiler, the same as the baseboard heat. The equipment was original to the homes construction in 1952. My parents were not satisfied with this arrangement, so had an 80 gallon Rheem electric water heater installed in 1960 or 61. This proved to be much better.

 

Separate electric meters for water heaters were not used in my immediate area, nor anywhere in CG&E (now Duke Energy) territory to the best of my knowledge. However, DP&L (Dayton, OH) did use them. Some family friends that lived several miles away were in the DP&L area, and their house had this meter arrangement. It consisted of three meter sockets. One held a meter for the regular house load, another for the WH time switch, and the other a meter for the WH. This of course required a separate disconnect and circuit breakers for the water heater. There was a good illustrated explanation of this type of system in the older editions of the Wiring Simplified book by H.P. Richter. I don't know if the newer editions have this or not 

 

[tomturbomatic]

I just called Mustee and the tub is no longer manufactured. I did see a tub in a cabinet at Costco last year. Maybe we can try to find something like that. As I remember it was wider than the Mustee.

 

[repairguy]

Wow Tom thanks for your time in checking with the company. I haven’t had a chance to go by the local plumbing supply yet but I know last time I really dug into it on the internet all avenues I found showed NLA. Suds savers never were common around these parts so neither are the sinks. I found a vintage one on market place a while back but the seller wouldn’t ship it.

 

[maytag85]

One time I almost got a Maytag A207S suds saver washer but literally sold within a hour of it being posted and if I did end up with it, it would be my very first suds saver washer but I’d only would save the water from lightly soiled laundry and wouldn’t bother with saving water from heavily soiled laundry but sadly someone bought it before I did.

 

[launderess]

Problem with using indirect or direct hot water off a boiler is you have to keep that thing on all year long. You can switch controls to "summer" which will lower water temp inside boiler so it won't heat building, but things must still be high enough to generate hot water.

Tree huggers and others have such arrangements in their cross hairs. Either by zoning or other local ordinances (largely aimed at capping emissions and or otherwise making buildings more energy efficient/green), or just simply forcing certain types of heating over others.

For ages indirect or direct hot water heating off a boiler was considered state of the art. You got "free" hot water and there wasn't problem with heat losses due to storing water in a tank.

Powers that be in certain areas would much rather see more separate instant water heating systems independent of boiler, or more energy efficient systems for getting hot water such as heat pumps, solar and so forth.

Ironically at least when it came to those old heavy high density cast iron or even steel boilers they actually had longer life if left heating all year long. Shutting them down over warmer times of year lead to all sorts of issues including faster rusting/rotting out of interior components.

There are boilers installed sixty to nearly one hundred years ago that still are chugging along. No, they aren't exactly efficient compared to modern standards, but many are at 85% which isn't too shabby.

 

[launderess]

Not only those Mustee tubs, but those portable single and double laundry tubs of aluminum or galvanized metal go for very good money if in good condition.

 

[launderess]

With more and more homes going with standpipe drain connections for washing machines, tubs of all sorts have simply become surplus to requirements.

Where once concrete, soap stone, enamel on steel, or other tubs were standard for laundry areas, they've all but vanished.

Much of this also likely has to do with washing machines being moved out of basements or dedicated rooms and into kitchens or other areas of homes.

Recall growing up women who had their washing machines in kitchen usually also had a double sink. This way washer could drain into one side but they still had use of other.

 

[circlew]

From what I remember the plumber telling me, the valves to the baseboard heat were closed during the time of year when heat wasn't required. The switch for the circulator pump was also shut off. My parents main complaint was not enough hot water.

 

Most new homes I've been in during the last 30 plus years had a sink in the laundry room. Most were deep single-bowl stainless steel units, but I've seen a few enamled iron ones. One I remember had a double-bowl model, with one side deeper. All these were installed in cabinets, usually matching ones in the kitchen.