Electric Hot Water Heaters
One of my units runs entirely on electric and has an electric hot water heater. I wound up researching them on the Internet, and found that they are more efficient than gas hot water heaters, and some come with a lifetime guarantee.
My thinking is that if you have a place where the tenants are paying the utilities, replacing the gas hot water heater for an electric could make sense for the owner since it could mean lower maintenance costs. I'm thinking in some areas it could cost more to operate depending on electric rates (but this cost would be passed on to the tenants).
Does anyone have long term experience regarding the use of electric over gas powered for hot water heaters?
For rentals, I MUCH prefer electric. This is coming form someone who used to repair both of them as part of my job for a few years. Gas water heaters are more expensive to repair, and if the chimney gets stopped up,(should be cleaned every year but who does that?)they can do smoke damage to your property. Also, since gas water heaters are very rarely maintained in accordance with manufacturers recommendations, I doubt they are as efficient as electric in the long run. Electric water heaters are low maintenance, cheap to fix, and also they can be repaired by almost anyone. That's all I use unless of course I buy a place that already has gas. Hope this helps.
I personally prefer gas,but most of my properties have electric hot water heaters. When I have to replace a system I generally stick with what is presently used.
I have 2 properties that use gas, one uses oil and the other uses electricity for heating. The cost of heating this winter was very high on the third one.
I should have qualified my above answer with the fact that landlords ,in general, don't pay utilities in my part of the country for any properties. I can somewhat understand when someone says they pay utilities on a multi ,although I would still have individual services run myself. However, I really don't understand what kind of circumstances could cause a landlord to pay utilities for a SFR. I hope than never catches on down here!
In Los Angeles most of our service is from Department of Water and Power. Their rate is below Edison, but then who is not? Even so I use gas. It is much cheaper. You will get some resistence if you use electric cause the average person knows it is more money.
In the Container houses we are all electric but then we are using solar panels which furnish electricity. We also when not in use send it down the line back spinning the meter so we get a credit.
When we are erecting on an in fill lot and they have a gas line we will use the gas line as it is much cheaper. Also the really gourmet cooks seem to prefer gas. I guess it is more easily adjustable to the different heating requirements.
Of course we also have solar panels that just heat water, rather primative but cheap. This way we hold down the use of gas for heating hot water and of course the radient heating system under the flooring.
cheers Lucius