"JustCallMe Norman" wrote in message
...
Electric Water Heaters are slow recovery units.
I agree.
Unlike natural gas water
heaters. It is typical to experience a drop in water temperature when
youre showering after 5-10 minutes.
That's a long shower!
As your electric water heater gets
older and sediment starts to accumulate in the bottom of the tank
(thereby decreasing its water holding capacity...), the problem will
become worse . A 10 minute shower with an average 40/50 gallon electric
water heater is about all you can expect to get .
Then wrote;
You can make the
situation better if you put two electric water heaters in series with
one another...but expect to pay bigtime in electricity.

Don't understand this 'series' comment! Do you mean parallel?

If you put the two heater elements 'in-series', even if they are now both on
at once you will get only half the wattage! So that will just take longer?

You may perhaps be referring to the fact that many electric water heaters
have an upper thermostat that, after the upper element has heated the top
section of the tank it 'flips over' and then allows the lower thermostat and
heater to heat the bottom of the tank. It is often possible, by moving one
wire, to bypass the 'flip flop' and allow both the upper heater under
control of its thermostat and the lower heater under control of the lower
thermostat to work independently. In other words both upper and lower can be
on at once/same time thus speeding heat recovery if/when the whole tank is
cool/cold.
Naturally this means that at certain times this method will increase the
amount of current required; if the upper and lower heaters are the same
wattage the amount of current will double.

One 3000 watt heater at a time requires 13 amps; double that if both upper
and lower can come on at same time.
So it becomes a matter of whether the wiring and the circuit breaker are the
correct size to supply 26 amps.
But overall can't see why it would increase the amount of electricity
required! The amount used is a function of how much water has to be heated
to the required temperature! Not how quickly it is done!

Final comment; it would not normally be desirable to have both heaters
switched on/off by the one thermostat at double the normal current!