On Sat, 23 Aug 2008 21:24:38 -0400, "Edwin Pawlowski"
wrote:


FWIW, we had a 40 gallon for our family of four in our old house and we
never ran out of hot water. Showers, laundry, dishwasher, it kept up with
our needs.

Thanks Ed, this is good to know.


In either case,
if you use 10 gallons of hot water it will be replaced by 10 gallons of cold
water and on either sized tank it will cost the same to bring it up to
temperature.

I was just thinking that a 50 gallon tank that needs to be kept at a
certain hot temperature would require more gas than a 40 gallon tank.

I don't know how the tanks work, but I was assuming that the tank's
complete contents are kept at a fixed temperature.