wrote in message
ups.com...
I have a 50Gal hot water heater under my house serving 2 bathrooms and
four people. I am looking for a safe way to prolong the availability of
hot water when two or three people take a shower in a row. I was
thinking about putting an inline water heater before the 50gal tank
heater. I don't want to buy a big inline heater, as it's just going to
be for stretching out the hot water available during a 40 minute
period. The problem I see is the max flow through the inline unit will
be too small. Do they make inline units that will flow at arbitrary
rates, and just heat the water less when flowing fast? This would be
ideal for me. Otherwise, could I split the flow (in parallel) going
into the tank water heater: half through the inline unit, and 2) half
through some restrictor valve to even the bias?


After convincing people to take shorter showers, the first
thing to do is make sure that your showerheads are LOW flow
units. Get ones with a shut-off on it to turn the water off while
soaping up, and teach people to use it. If your shower valves
allow it, don't turn the water all the way on to shower.
If you still have a problem, turn up the water heater temp.
If you are concerned about scalding, a tempering valve on
the output would help. Next step would be to upsize the water
heater, or replace it with a faster recovery unit.
Any of these steps should be cheaper than a big enough
inline unit to do any good.

Bob