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Insulating a water heater in the garage

N Heat

Member
Joined
Jan 11, 2008
Messages
21
My water heater is located in my attached garage. Most of the time, I keep the man door open for my dogs to go in and out. Now that the weather is cooler, I'm more worried about heat loss. What can I do to insulate my water heater? Can I just wrap it with fiberglass insulation, or would a blanket designed for the purpose be better?
 
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nate379

Banned
Joined
Feb 2, 2009
Messages
7,279
Location
Palmer, AK
Have been told by several people that it's almost pointless on the new heaters. Pretty much if the outside of the heater doesn't feel warm at all, then putting more insulation isn't going to help too much.

Granted if it's 20* in the garage, I can't imagine it would hurt though. I have noticed if I leave my garage door open (like when welding) the water heater usually is the first thing to kick on, well before the slab heat for the garage.
 
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BioHazard

Banned
Joined
Feb 3, 2010
Messages
743
Have been told by several people that it's almost pointless on the new heaters. Pretty much if the outside of the heater doesn't feel warm at all, then putting more insulation isn't going to help too much.

I agree. I wanted to insulate my shop water heater since it sits there doing nothing most of the time...but then I turned off the breaker and saw that it stayed quite warm even after 3 days being off in a ~40 degree shop.
 

Motofixxer

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 10, 2009
Messages
681
I recently replaced my water heater and noticed it stated on there Insulated R value of 13. Never actually seen one noted like that. And that heater is about 20 years old.
 
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