Water Heater
How many gallons / litres is your home water heater?
We live in a suburban 4 bedroom detached home. I find that after my wife and kid shower, I’m stuck showering in cold water.
Are they using too much water or is my water heater just not big enough?
Edit: not my photo. We currently have a 50gal tank.
Looks like a standard 40gal, but I can't say for sure without reading the label. In the end, if it doesn't meet your needs, that's mostly what matters. But I wouldn't expect three people to be able to shower one after the other unless they were pretty quick at it, so it may be that others have different expectations.
Really? A home water heater doesn't do 3 showers back to back to back? For the record that's just a stock photo. We actually have a 50Gal. I just feel like when I was a kid growing up at my parents house, our heater could easily handle 7-8 showers in a row when we had relatives staying with us. Thanks for the reply!
In my entire life, I've never lived or stayed in a home that could do even two whole showers back to back, and most places I've lived have had water heaters that looked just like that one. The norm, in my experience, is for the warm water to run out just as the first person finishes showering, and for each additional person to wait 30 minutes to an hour for there to be enough hot water for another shower.
Check my response and watch the connections video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm7L-2J52GU
It's actually a bit more complicated than just the volume. A fifty gallon can produce well over 50 gallons of hot water.
Is it electeic or gas? Have you flushed it recently? What is the temperature set to? Does the hot water have a smell? It may simply be time to replace it. They dont last forever.
Have you ever flushed the tank? If there is sediment in it, you lose volume to that. But if you haven't done it annually from new, you can cause more harm than good by starting to flush it now.
There are different heating element sizes for electric heaters and different burner btu ratings for gas heaters. You can have a big tank and low heating output, a small tank with a high output, or any other combo of those.
My solution is to buy the highest output heater with as big of a tank as you can find, crank the output to just below the flamethrower output level, and shower with my wife. It fixes most of the problems with a benefit of naked wife time.
I live on the gulf coast with a shitty power grid so we have gas powered tank heaters so it still works during an outage, otherwise I would probably go tankless.
That's a good sized heater. It could be filled with sediment and not working efficiently. If you haven't emptied it recently, it might be worth it.
If it's clean, you can try turning it up. It will make full-hot from your faucet hotter, so be careful of scalding yourself, but it will make the hot water last longer.
You could also get a slightly lower flow shower head. Using less water at a time will allow it to last longer and keep do better keeping up with the empty rate.
If none of that works or is something you want to try, you could always replace with a tankless and never run out. Though you'll waste a bit more water each time you turn on the hot since it takes a few seconds to kick in, but you won't run out.
Is 40gal-50gal normal for a home? Previous owners were an elderly couple. I'm sure it suited them well. But with our family of 3 with laundry and occasional dishwasher running, it seems like it's just slightly not enough. Especially if we're all trying to get ready for an event or have family staying with us.
Maybe I just need to get it serviced... Thanks!
Get it serviced, the most common cause of lack of water is sediment buildup around the heating elements.
If everything else is fine and the kids are older, turn the heat up. The tanks are all designed to go up to 140F. However by default the setting is lower in the US to prevent scalding 120-125F.
Not sure of the size exactly, but my 8-unit condo building shares a single water heater that looks like the picture you posted. When I shower it takes 10+ minutes to even get lukewarm, then I only have 5 minutes of water pressure before it turns to a dribble.
In your case, and tankless water heater might be a great route. Instant, unlimited hot water.
LOL that's me after my wife and kid shower. Luke warm dribble and I'm a bald guy so I don't have to fuss with washing hair and stuff. My showers are quick.
Personally I would never settle for a tank heater. I want one that can deliver unlimited hot water on demand.
They’re cheaper to operate, and it’s good never having to worry about things like whether someone just washed a few dishes before you go take a shower.
It depends where you live and your usage/situation. In Canada on demand heaters are kind of rare as the water in winter is much too cold to be heated instantly. It's possible but it takes "beefy" heaters, so tanks are much more common.
scariest component of a home.
good information here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm7L-2J52GU
30 gallon. Perfect for just the girlfriend and me.
You could have a broken dip tube. The dip tube mixes the incoming cold water with the hot water. If it's broken then the water at the top of the tank gets cold and the outgoing water comes from the top.