Obama tightens efficiency rules for home water heaters

President Obama's push to increase energy efficiency is extending to home water heaters. The Department of Energy is requiring new ones meet stricter standards that could increase initial costs but reduce utility bills.

The Department of Energy is requiring that water heaters, beginning in 2015, meet stricter energy efficiency standards. Here's a General Electric one that carries the government's Energy Star label.

DOE, which has increased efficiency standards for more than 20 products such as washing machines in the last year, announced Thursday that large electric water heaters (55 gallons or more) will need to use 47% less energy and large gas ones, 30% less. Smaller units won't need to reduce energy use as much.

"You don't have to go out and replace your water heater," says DOE spokeswoman Jen Stutsman. The rules simply require that new conventional water heaters, beginning in 2015, be more efficient.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said energy efficient appliances save families money, reduce pollution and "enhance our energy security for decades to come."

Environmentalists pushed for the new rules, which are stricter than ones DOE proposed late last year.

"These standards will not only boost the total national energy savings, but help create a bigger market for advanced water heater technologies that will eventually make every shower cheaper and more sustainable," Lane Burt of the Natural Resources Defense Council said in a statement.

DOE is also increasing efficiency standards, beginning in 2013, for pool heaters and direct heating equipment, such as gas fireplaces. These products, along with water heaters, account for 18% of home energy use.

Over three decades, DOE says the new rules will save a total of $10 billion and prevent up to 164 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions -- the equivalent of taking 46 million cars off the road for one year.

DOE estimates that the installed cost of a typical gas storage water heater (now $1,079) will increased $120 but will be offset by savings of $143 in average lifetime operating costs.

The department says it' also stepping up its enforcement of efficiency standards. On Monday, for example, it ordered that AeroSys, Inc. stop distributing an air conditioner and heat pump that independent testing showed were consuming more energy than allowed.