Water

Water is a precious resource, well worth conserving. And many condos use a lot of energy to heat water. Some options follow for greener ways to heat water in a condo complex.

Solar water heaters

Solar water heaters use absorber panels to harvest the sun’s energy; water is heated in tubes near the panel system. These heaters can save you 50% – 80% of costs.

We haven’t yet considered this option for our condo complex, but I found an interesting case history of a Philadelphia condo complex that did this.

For more, see general info from the Department of Energy.

Tankless water heaters

At my condo complex, we considered replacing our single water heater with tankless heaters for each unit. Not only were we paying over $1500 a month in gas to heat our water, but because the heater was at one end of the complex, we were wasting water as people waited for it to heat up.

For this option to work, everyone in the condo complex must participate. In a situation like ours, we’d have to shut down the single heater and replace that with individual heaters for each unit. These tankless heaters are small and can fit in a closet (we have laundry closets that would be ideal). The hot water would be instant, and the unit runs only when a hot water tap is turned on. They’d save water, which is environmentally beneficial and would also save the HOA money. In addition to saving money on gas, in a situation like ours, because it now takes a while for hot water to reach each unit, we’d save water, which would also save HOA more money. That would lead to saving on sewer bills, which are based on water usage. In addition, the HOA would not have to pay to maintain the central system, or build reserves to replace it in the future.

Tankless heaters cost around $2,500 (including installation), before rebates. Rebates can bring cost down quite a bit, depending on current rebate rates. Tankless water heaters can handle 3 showers, a dishwasher, and a clothes washer running at the same time.

More info in this article (see the comments for useful links, too). The Department of Energy also has some information about tankless heaters.