this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

Our house is equipped with recirculating hot water, which is pretty darn cool. You get instant hot water when you turn the tap on - for a price, of course. Until last month though, I didn't really realize how costly it was. Our gas and electricity is handled by the same company. Our hot water heater and regular heater uses gas. I knew that the Spring's electricity/gas bills were higher than last year, but for awhile just chalked it up to higher energy prices, using the a/c a bit more this year , and a few other random things.

Last month, I decided to check out usage and imagine my surprise when our gas usage was twice as much as the same month the previous year! The only culprit we could think of was the recirculating hot water. We've gone back and forth between having it off and on during the time we've lived in this house. So we turned it off and this month our gas usage was half of what it was last month.

Sure, we use a bit more water while waiting for it to get hot, but not too much. The water company loves the idea of recirculating hot water because it saves water. We'll keep it off though and use more water. It just seems to be more cost effective for us.