"Ken" wrote in message
...
Paul of Dayton wrote:
Hi Folks -

This one has me stumped. When we bought this house 5 years ago, we
quickly discovered it was easy to run out of hot water. I did the usual
checks to see if the WH was connected correctly and also checked each
plumbing fixture to see if a bad valve might be allowing the cold and hot
to mix. I finally chalked it up to on old 40gal gas heater full of gunk
and turned the temp up.

The heater finally died this summer so I replaced it with a 50gal unit
with a larger burner. I set it at the recommended setting and figured
all would be well. Lately, I find we are running out of hot water again.
This morning, one shower emptied it. It is burning correctly, just full
of cold water.

I bumped the temp up a bit but I really liked not burning my hands to a
cinder with hot water. There has to be something causing this but I am
stumped.

By the way, the old heater wasn't significantly heaver than the new one
after I emptied it.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

PoD


Isn't there supposed to be a tube that forces the cold water into the
water heater so that it enters the bottom of the tank? If so, I wonder if
they are installed?


That was my thought, your dip tube could be busted.

The fill for the WH is on the top, but so is the exit, so, to prevent the
cold water coming in from going straight out without being heated, there is
supposed to be a dip tube that brings the cold all the way to the bottom of
the tank,
so, if you looked at your hot water heaters cross section, the bottom would
be cold and the top hot.

there was a class action suit a while ago where almost every water heater in
production had faulty dip tubes that would disintegrate after a few years
leaving the tank without a tube, I had plastic chunks coming out of my hot
tap for a while till the tub was replaced. The old tube was only 3 inches
long instead of the 3 feet it should have been.

since you say you have a new tank, its less likely that this is the case,
but is it possible the tube is cracked or not attached correctly?

Dave