The Impact of Water Heaters to the Environment

One of the most deceiving equipments people least think about are residential water heaters. The Philippines typically use Electric Water Heaters in heating water for showers. But the question is, is there a big electricity cost in using electric water heaters? Is there a big impact in our Environment? Is there an environment concern in using electric water heaters that we do not know of?

Let us start off with the following computation for everyone's better understanding of how is energy computed for electric water heaters.

We first have to start off with how much BTU do we need to raise our water temperature to the desired level.

BTU stands for British Thermal Unit, it presents how much energy is required to raise 1 pound of water up by 1 degree Farenheit.

Remember that 1 Gallon of water is 8.337 pounds.

And an Electric Water Heater needs 4.9 Kilowatt hours to produce 16,600 BTU.

As an example, a typical shower head in the Philippines can consume 3.5 Gallons Per Minute to 5 Gallons Per Minute.

Gallons Per Minute is the amount of water a shower head uses in 1 minute.

With one of the clients I have worked with, their showerhead was consuming 4.8 Gallons per minute.

Their water before being heated is 20 degrees Celcius (68 Farenheit)

The optimal water temperature for a shower for my client was 38 degrees Celcius (100.4 Farenheit)

They needed to raise water temperature by 32.4 degrees Farenheit.

So, 32.4 degrees Farenheit, multiplied by 8.337 pounds per gallon, totals 270.119 BTU Per Gallon


Their showerhead at 4.8 GPM therefore needs 1,296.53 BTU Per Minute.


That is equivalent to an energy consumption of 0.38 kwh for heating water per minute

In monetary terms, at Php 9.5 per kwh, it costs Php 3.61 for hot water PER MINUTE.

An eco friendly showerhead using 1.2 GPM would cost Php 0.85 per minute of shower.

Therefore, Electric Water Heaters using conventional showerheads would actually cost Php 2.75 PER MINUTE more than eco friendly showerheads.

Besides the economic cost, each Kilowatt of Energy used in the Philippines has carbon emissions of 0.59 kilos.

While this sounds small, a person taking a 10 minute shower a day would end up with 600 Kilos of CO2 a year in the atmosphere more than necessary. This is 600 kilos of carbon could have been saved by using an eco showerhead.


The above computation is designed to give everyone a bigger glimpse of what is the impact of electric water heaters.

But there is more.

Using centralized water heating means that water is being heated and reheated to keep a proposed optimal temperature. Ill designed pipings would mean that water keeps cooling, and therefore the heater needs to keep heating.

It is therefore vital that hot water pipes are well insulated to ensure water is always warm. Check the body of the centralized water heater for any loss of insulation and have it fixed.

The economic and environmental benefit of a well maintained water heater, paired with an efficient showerhead would create a big change that many have not even thought about. Try to rethink our use of resource and through better management we are thus taking positive steps to an environmental future