Water Heating Costs For 1,2,3,4,5,6 Family Homes (State-By-State Analysis)

In the US, we spend $400 to $600 per year on water heating. Right? Well, this water heating cost has been thrown around quite a lot. But does that number apply to both 1-member and 2-member households, as well as 5-member and 6-member households? Is this the water heating cost for a 1,000 sq ft house in California or for a 3,000 sq ft house in Chicago? Of course not.

Evidently, we need a more detailed approach to estimating the average water heating costs. This is the absolute US average for all homes (about 118.2 million households), located from the North to South, from below 1,000 sq ft to above 3,000 sq ft, for 1 member households to 6+ member households.

The 400$ to $600 number (that would be $33.33 to $50.00 per month) originates from the 2013 US Department Of Energy article about water heating costs that states that “the average household spends 14%-18% of their utility bill on water heating – that equates to approximately $400-$600 each year”. (DOE on the annual cost of heating water)

That’s why you will see a lot of homeowners a bit confused when they check their own water heating bill. Here are just some of these examples:

“I paid $76.32 for water heating in January. Shouldn’t I be paying like 50 bucks max.?” (Source: plumbingforums.com)

“Why do you guys pay so much for water heating? My bill lists water heating and it’s like below $25 every month.” (Source: reddit.com)

“Is it just me or does anybody else pay $100+ for water heating? I have an 80-gallon water heater but $100+ seems excessive, that’s $1200+ per year it’s insane.” (Source: diychatroom.com)

Clearly, we need to take a more nuanced view of these water heating costs. $400 to $600 annually just isn’t accurate enough; you might be paying a lot more than that. In order to adequately estimate the actual water heating cost, we are going to use statistical analysis using datasets from the last reported RECS data (Residential Energy Consumption Survey) to calculate the following:

• Water heating cost by the number of household members (family size). Here we will obviously see that, on average, a 5-member family home spends more on water heating than a 2-member family home. In that $400-$600 annual cost numbers, these homes would pay roughly the same for water heating (US total average), which obviously is not the case (5 people showering will use more hot water than 2 people showering, for example).
• Water heating cost state-by-state. The cost of heating water is heavily influenced by the inlet water temperature. Example: Texas or California households will, on average, pay less for heating water than New York households. That’s due to the 57°F – 67°F inlet water temperature in the South vs. 35°F – 47°F inlet water temperature in the North (here is a map with inlet water temperature in the US by Rinnai). We have to bring that water temperature up to 100°F or more for showering, dishwasher, and so on. Those initial 10°F  – 20°F inlet water temperature differences in North vs South will increase our water heating bill.

Of course, the water heating cost will also depend on the choice of fuel (57.7 million homes use natural gas, 40.9 million homes use electricity, 5.0 million homes use propane, and 5.8 million homes use fuel oil or kerosene for heating water), size of the water heater (30-gallon, 50-gallon, 80-gallon, or tankless water heater with varying kW or BTU power; varying GPM), the efficiency of the water heater (energy factor or EF), and down to how hot a shower you prefer.

Now, the tricky part is how the actually get accurate data on what are the heating costs state-by-state and for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 member family homes.

Luckily, the US government makes census surveys every 5 or so years. A part of that census is the Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS). We are going to use the last full public RECS dataset published here to estimate as accurately as possible the water heating cost state-by-state for 1-6 member family homes.

Here are the quick outtakes:

• We spend $34.90 billion annually on water heating. This represents 15.90% of our energy expenditures; second only to space heating (27.69%), and followed by air conditioning (12.44%).
• An average US household will spend $298 annually or $24.83 per month on water heating. The water heating cost ranges from as low as $126 to as high as $758 per household (or $10.50 to $63.17 per month).
• The US states that pay the most for water heating are the New England states (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont). The average in these states is $379 per year (vs. $298/year US average).
• The US states that pay the least for water heating are the West North Central states (Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota). The average in these states is $243 per year (vs. $298/year US average).

Let’s first start by looking at these extensive datasets and the total US averages:

Average Water Heating Cost By Fuel: Extracting Relevant Water Heating Cost Data From RECS Survey

RECS datasets include water heating energy consumption (Example: How many kWh or therms of gas we use) and energy expenditure (how much does amount of kWh or therms of gas that is used for water heater cost). Here is the thing about this RECS data:

The US Energy Information Administration published 89 or so datasets. These are quite detailed, contain 1000s of numbers, and are thus quite complex to fully understand. In order to calculate the water heating costs, we are going to boil down this data, and present them in a way that every Average Joe will be able to understand.

Alright, let’s start from the top:

According to the last released RECS data, there are 118.2 million homes in the United States. Combined we have used – and this is an enormously high number – a total of 1,745 billion BTU of heat (from gas, electricity, propane, fuel oil/kerosene). All in all, we spend $34.90 billion annually on water heating.

That means that the US average household doesn’t pay anywhere from $400 to $600 for water heating. We have the census data from all water heating bills in the US that clearly states that the actual average water heating cost is $298 per year or $24.83 per month.

Here is the breakdown by the fuel we use for heating water. Out of 118.2 million homes:

• 57.7 million homes use gas as primary water heating fuel. These homes use 993 trillion BTU of natural gas (that is 9,930,000,000 therms of gas, so almost 10 billion therms). We have collectively paid $13.20 billion for gas used for heating water. That means that an average US home that uses gas to heat water pays $229 per year gas water heating bill ($19.08 per month). Immediately we see this is well below the $400 to $600 range.
• 40.9 million homes use electricity as primary water heating fuel. These homes use 461 trillion BTU of electricity (if we use this BTU to kWh converter, we see that we use 135.1 billion kWh of electricity anually for heating water). We have collectively paid $14.04 billion for electricity used for heating water. That means that an average US home that uses electricity to heat water pays $343 per year electricity water heating bill ($28.58 per month). Again, we see this is well below the $400 to $600 range. We also see that, on average, homes that use electric water heaters pay $114/year more for heating water than homes that use gas water heaters.
• 5.0 million homes use propane as primary water heating fuel. These homes use 95 trillion BTU of propane (from EIA conversion, we know that 1 gallon of propane = 91,452 BTU; we thus use 1.04 billion gallon of propane for heating water). We have collectively paid $1.99 billion for propane used for heating water. That means that an average US home that uses propane to heat water pays $398 per year propane water heating bill ($33.17 per month). This is actually very close to the lower range ($400) quotes by that older DOE analysis.
• 5.8 million homes use fuel oil or kerosene as primary water heating fuel. These homes use 2.53 trillion BTU of fuel oil or kerosene. We have collectively paid $0.96 billion for fuel oil or kerosene used for heating water. That means that an average US home that uses either of these two fuels to heat water pays $435 per year fuel oil or kerosene water heating bill ($36.25 per month). This is actually within the $400 and $600 range but only about 5% of US homes use these two fuels for heating water.

From these US total and per household energy consumption and expenditure data, we immediately see that the best fuel for heating water is gas (lowest monthly water heating bill). We noted each. We see a lot of questions if gas or electric water heaters are better; here is the clear answer. You will, on average, pay $114 per year less using a gas water heater vs an electric water heater.

But:

These are just averages collected from water heating bills from all US households. To get to the difference between 1 vs 2 vs 3 vs 4 vs 5 vs 6-family homes water heating cost, we need to dig deeper. We will also use the regional RECS data to calculate the water heating cost for each US state.

Average Water Heating Cost For 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, And 6 Family Homes

The more people live in the household, the more hot water we will use. That means that each person showering, mouth washing, and so on, adds dollars to the household’s water heating bill.

We already know that the average US household will pay $298 per year for heating water. Within this average, however, are 1-6+ family homes. Let’s look at how much homes with a different number of occupants pay for water heating, on average, and compare that to the overall $298 per year average.

Here is a chart that specifies the dollars we pay for heating 1-family, 2-family, 3-family, 4-family, 5-family, and 6+ family homes:

As we see from this chart, 1 family home, on average, pays $155 per year for heating water. For comparison, a 6+ family home pays almost four times that amount; $595 annually.

This provides a good (but not good enough by our standards) insight into how much you will pay for water heating given your family size. We do know that warmer states (US South) will, in general, pay less for heating water than the colder states (US North). We will look into these 1-6+ family home-size average hot water bills by recalibrating averages for each state with this last 4th column (comparison to the total average).

Let’s finally look at the state-by-state water heating costs:

State-By-State Water Heating Costs

It would be perfect if the RECS data would list the annual average household water heating cost by state. Unfortunately, the RECS data only includes regional hot water costs. Here is an example of what we would wish to see in these datasets versus what we actually see:

• What we want to see (example): Average household in the state of New York will pay $318 annually for water heating.
• What RECS datasets give us: Average household in Middle Atlantic region will pay $318 annually for water heating.

The key difference here is that for the Middle Atlantic region, the RECS data sets compile water heating cost data from 3 Middle Atlantic states: New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Not only New York.

This is the best data we have, and we are going to work with this (estimating water heating costs as accurately as humanly possible).

Here are the 9 regions RECS datasets gives us data for and the states included in each state:

• New England states: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont.
• Middle Atlantic states: New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania.
• East North Central states: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin.
• West North Central states: Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota.
• South Atlantic states: Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia.
• East South Central states: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee.
• West South Central states: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas.
• Mountain regions states: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming.
• Pacific states: California, Oregon, Washington (without Alaska and Hawaii as per the United States Census Bureau).

Now, we want to look for how much water heating costs (on average) in each of these states for 1-family, 2-family, 3-family, 4-family, 5-family, and 6+ family homes. Example: An average 4-family home in Texas spends $389 per year on water heating, or an average 5-family home in Minnesota spends $399 per year on water heating.

For easier presentation, we will start with 1-family homes water heating expenditure state-by-state, followed by the same state-by-state calculation for 2-family homes, and so on up to 6+ family homes.

Alright, here are the final water heating cost charts state-by-state based on the number of occupants (we will use the comparison to the US average cost for the number of occupants – 4th column in the chart above – for recalibration):

1-Family Home State-By-State Water Heating Cost

The total US (50 states) average water heating cost for a 1-family home is $155 per year or $12.92 per month. Here are the 1-family home average water heating costs state-by-state:

As we can see, the average water heating cost for a 1-family home ranges from $126 to $197 per year. That comes to $10.50 to $16.42 per monthly water heating bill.

2-Family Home State-By-State Water Heating Cost

The total US (50 states) average water heating cost for a 2-family home is $260 per year or $21.67 per month. Here are the 2-family home average water heating costs state-by-state:

3-Family Home State-By-State Water Heating Cost

The total US (50 states) average water heating cost for a 3-family home is $352 per year or $29.33 per month. Here are the 3-family home average water heating costs state-by-state:

4-Family Home State-By-State Water Heating Cost

The total US (50 states) average water heating cost for a 4-family home is $428 per year or $35.67 per month. Here are the 4-family home average water heating costs state-by-state:

5-Family Home State-By-State Water Heating Cost

The total US (50 states) average water heating cost for a 5-family home is $489 per year or $40.75 per month. Here are the 5-family home average water heating costs state-by-state:

6-Family Home State-By-State Water Heating Cost

The total US (50 states) average water heating cost for a 6-family home is $595 per year or $49.58 per month. Here are the 6-family home average water heating costs state-by-state:

This has been an overview and statistical analysis of water heating costs in the US, based on the RECS data. As we have seen, the actual water heating costs for 1-6+ family homes range from $126 to 758 per year. We hope that you now have a better understanding of how much heating water costs for every state and for every household size.

If you have any questions about the calculations or would like for us to estimate how much you should be paying for hot water, you can use the comment section below, and we will try to help you out.