Robert wrote:
Hi All:

A few weeks ago I posted a problem with our 13-year old water heater
and as per the suggestions received, we bought a new water heater.

Now the new problem:
We replaced a 66 gallon with a 50 gallon water heater (66 gallon was
out of stock). It is a whirlpool water heater (has two 5000 watt
elements) with life-time warranty. Our household has only 3 people.
When we bought the water heater we were assured that, it will be
sufficient for a household of four people.

The problem we are facing right now is, the hot water is not even
sufficient for two people to take a shower. The second person will end
up with chilling cold water. We did not run our washer or dishwasher
in the morning and hot water was not used for any other purpose.

When we noticed this problem, we increased the water temperature even
up to 150 degree, thinking a higher temperature would solve the
problem. The water did heat up to a higher temperature, but still the
second person to shower is ending with cold water. Three people cannot
take shower in the morning.

So please advice, is there anything wrong with the water heater? - Or
is it just because it is smaller in capacity than what we need. Is
there anyway to test that both elements in the heater are working?

Thanks for your advice and time.

Robert

Typical shower heads flow at about 2.5 gallons per minute, and since
you're obviously not running "full hot" water when you start showering,
you ought to get *at least" 20 minutes of showering time out of a fully
heated 50 gallon hot water heater.

If the shower is over a bathtub, how about measuring the interior volume
of the tub and and do the math to compute its volume versus water depth.

Then, in the morning, start filling the tub with "full hot" water and
see how many gallons you put in the tub before the water starts cooling
off to the point where you'd consider you'd "run out" of hot water.

If you have an empty 5 gallon plastic bucket or two handy you could use
those to measure the volume without having to calculate the tub volume.

If you can't get somewhere near 50 gallons of hot water out of that
heater before running out, something's not right.

Are you sure that when the new heater was installed it was plumbed
correctly and haven't accidently run the cold feed into the "hot"
fitting on the heater, so the dip tube is working against you?

Let's hear what you discover,

Jeff

--

Jeff Wisnia (W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)

"If you can smile when things are going wrong, you've thought of someone
to blame it on."