Hot water heating trends in new home builds

WITH THE need for economically friendly and financially beneficial homes being stressed for all newly built homes, looking into the trends of these new homes’ hot water usage is the key.

This will help find out how to save the extra dollar on electricity bills as ECO ICF solutions stated that homes using electricity as their sole energy source, heating and maintaining a hot water supply is the largest component of a household’s electricity bills.

The two most common water heating options in New Zealand are electric water heating and gas/ liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). The old electric cylinders are the most popular heating method in homes.

Smarter Homes has said these were small and low pressure and energy inefficient, compared to the modern cylinders that are high pressure and nearly 180 litres or bigger.

Gas hot water is more efficient than electric water heating and provides continuous hot water whilst also only using gas when water taps are turned on. These clear benefits show that for regular water users, installing gas/LPG heating is ideal for new large homes.

There has been a big step up in hot water trends over the past decade alone.

The Energy Department has worked on the next big water heating technologies that will help new households by being both energy and financially efficient. From advances such as a CO2 water heater that is more efficient and environmentally friendly than the current water heaters available to the Vertex Water Heater, a gas heater that has lower manufacturing cost and providing savings to customers of up to 30 percent. These advances in water heat pumps are providing price both efficiency and much needed savings to newly built homeowners and are evident of the rapidly increasing options customers having when building new homes.