Daddy Tanuki
Emperor Of Solar
yep see above, hence my desire to add more elements but not sure of the way a US water heater works. I am using US elements as I had not been able to find any locally. they have the old style electric water heaters, but they are becoming scarce with HPWH's Solar vacuum tube water heaters, and the current crop of super efficient gas on demand units, the old style ones are hard to find, and even if you do they do not want to sell you parts, they want to sell you complete units.Just remember 1 watt only = 3.412 btu's. 4500 watts = 15354 btu's.
FYI I can spend about 1200 USD per year on this project (or any combination of years to get there), as it originally cost me 1200 USD in kerosene to heat the cabin just on the weekends for one whole winter season. This was prior to the remodel and new insulation. have not used kerosene now in over 7 years as I got into the whole wood burning thing, but as I age, that will eventually become a non starter as well.
for the first years experiment if I only get free hot water and can warm the house during the shoulder seasons that will be enough initially