In Ontario, a seemingly insignificant household expense is the cost of renting a hot water heater. These are typically provided by Direct Energy or Reliance Home Comfort, who charge rates of roughly $80 every quarter. These seemingly small $25 per month charges certainly do add up, so if you were to do some simple math over a conservative 15 year lifespan of a power vent tank water heater, you are looking at spending $4800. Or you could buy a top quality unit for $1800, leaving you $3000 to pay for repairs, the excess of that being money in your pocket. Or why not just forget about repairing it, and replace it every 7.5 years, and still be $1200 ahead every 15 years!
It may not be a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but a lot of it is unnecessry profit going to these places that rent water heaters. So I decided to take the chance, phoned Reliance Home Comfort up, and agreed to buy the unit sitting in my basement for a whopping $41 plus HST. So now I will just see how long until it kicks the bucket, then buy a new one, unencumbered by any restrictions or agreements that were previously in place.
