I have a 40 gallon "high efficiency" gas hot water heater that's about 4-5 years
old at this point. EVER SINCE IT WAS INSTALLED I have felt that the amount of
hot water available was much less than expected. For example, when taking a
shower using one of the current crop of shower valves (that have the REALLY
small pipes inside the fitting), and a low-flow shower head within 3-4 MINUTES
its necessary to start turning the termperature to hotter in order to maintain
the same termperature.

The problem is so bad that we've been running the water heater on the full hot
setting (temperature knob turned ALL THE WAY TO HOT) because my wife likes to
take hot showers. Even so, she can turn on the faucet nearest the heater and
hold her hand in the hot water stream without scalding.

Recently, we spent some time at my mother's house, and even though she is using
a standard shower head that flows more than ours, I found NO NEED to
continuously turn the temperature up while taking a shower. The water lasted
the entire shower, which seems much more normal than my heater at home...

I can only think of a couple reasons why our heater would have these problems:

1. I hooked the pipes up wrong and the cold water and hot are switched. NOPE.
I checked and the pipes are on the holes marked correctly.

2. The dip tube? that carries the cold water to the bottom has fallen off?
Possible, although when I installed the heater I checked with a flashlight and
there was a tube connected to the cold water inlet that I could see going down
into the heater...

3. Sediment? I open the valve and let a bunch of crud shoot out every couple
months...


BUT, since this heater has had this characteristic EVER SINCE IT WAS INSTALLED I
suspect none of the above is the problem...

SO, since I'm tired of this, and I'm REALLY tired of my wife complaining, and I
figure we're wasting a lot of gas trying to heat water to the hottest
temperature, I figure its time to replace this thing. And although I find some
discussions in here of water heaters, I'm not finding much in the way of
recommendations.

There are only two of us in the house, and the water heater is a regular
flue-type, natural gas. Can y'all give me any recommendations for brand/model
or whatever, or are they all pretty much the same and I can go over to Menard's
or Home Depot and just get a 40 gallon and be done with it... Is it worth going
to a 50-gallon for just 2 people? It seems like overkill since the biggest
thing we ever do is fill the tub occasionally, which it seems a properly working
40-gallon should do...

OR, is there something I'm missing on this current heater that I can do to get
it to work significantly better?

Ideas? Thoughts?