On Wednesday, February 5, 2020 at 11:14:02 PM UTC-5, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 2/5/2020 10:44 PM, rdankwort wrote:
replying to Peabody, rdankwort wrote:
This is a very common phenomenon in water heaters.Â* In the morning my
temp. is
just warm; after I do a load of laundry it is piping hot.Â* And
in-between for
moderate use.
Unlike you I don't like to mess with my thermostat setting.Â* It'sÂ* a crummy
honeywell regulator on a Bradford-White tank.Â* The Robertshaw I used to
have
on my earlier tank at least had visible and large temp. setting marks; the
honeywell is a tiny knob with useless setting markers.

Anyway, if I want hot water in the morning I try to get up a bit early &
run a
water faucet somewhere.Â* I know that'saÂ* sinful waste of waterÂ* but what
would
you.

BTW living in a hot desert climate I have a very different summer problem
also: between the hot garage temperatures and the pilot my water runs
almost
dangerously hot.. The pilot alone keeps the temp. up! I once tried just
shutting off the pilot but then the water temp.was way too low.


After 15 years we finally have an answer.

If it's a common problem, I've had decades of experience and never had
noticeably temp swings like that. Granted it's only been with maybe
five of them, but they were mostly just the basic pilot light type,
nothing fancy or expensive and they maintained temp so I never noticed
a difference.

Unfortunately the cost of a new gas valve assembly is probably so much
that unless it's new you might as well change the whole thing. And
if it was doing this when new, should have documented how much the
temp varies and called the manufacturer. They might have sent a new
valve assembly. I had a State WH where the thermocouple failed while
under warranty. I called them up, they had a new one here in a few
days, no charge. Of course a valve assembly costs a lot more, so
they may not be so quick to replace, but I'd think if it was really
out of range, they would.