On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:25:17 -0600, Jules
wrote:

On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:51:01 -0600, Leon wrote:
"hot" water heater? I only need a "water heater". ;!) Iknow, I know, it
reheats relatively hot water, but would a hot water heater work if it were
full of cold water?

Define "cold". My water comes out of the ground at a pretty much constant
55 degrees year-round, and that's considerably hotter than freezing ;-)

Mine sure doesn't. There is a big change in the shower handle
position between summer and winter. When I lived in VT we were lucky
it came out liquid in the winter. ;-) The frost line often went down
7' and not all water lines did. Since we had a domestic hot water
coil in the boiler, the hot water temperature varied quite a lot too.