On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 06:34:35 GMT, blueman wrote:

The house we recently purchased has a 1 year old gas hot water heater
that appears to be undersized for the house.

The house has 5-6 bedrooms and we are a family of 6, yet the tank is
only 50 gallons. We typically run out of hot water after 1-2 baths and
a couple of showers.

Seems to me we have a couple of choices:
1. Take fewer, shorter, and more spaced out baths and showers
(not acceptable per my wife and kids

2. Replace with new larger tank (100 gallons?)
(however, existing unit is almost new, so this sounds a bit
wasteful)

3. Get a second hot water heater
(Can this be done? Can you just get another storage tank or do you
need 2 separate full heaters? Are they connected in series or parallel?)

4. Get some type of booster such as an auxilliary tankless heater?
(Is there some type of booster that only comes on when the main
tank is depleted and that would not be too costly to purchase or
install?)

Assuming that #1 is not an option (at least per my wife), what
approach would you recommend?


Without knowing your specifics, option #2 is probably your least cost
and most efficient (and space saving) option. Make sure that it is
also gas and check the recovery times before you purchase.

Come to think of it, the showers should not place much of a load on a
gas hot water heater. Are you using low-flow shower heads? These
are limited to 2.5 gallons per minute. Showers generally use less hot
water than baths so if you are going to change your lifestyle and tell
the family to take more showers - less baths, that would be one thing
to try.

Drain the sediment from your existing hot water heater with the valve
provided. You might get a marginal improvement in the recovey time.

Option # 3 - Second heaters are sometimes installed in series with an
existing tank (if local codes permit). However, most of the time you
will then have two large tanks of standing hot water and the losses
(through the tank and the pipes at the top) that are characteristic
with this configuration. If you go this route, you might want to make
the first retrofit tank in the loop electric and put a timer on it so
that it only operates during your (presumably morning) peak demand
times. Gas heaters are cheaper and more efficient, but it is
virtually impossible to put a timer on a standard gas heater with a
standing pilot.

Option #4 - Having a tankless heater will be expensive in terms of
capital cost for the BTU's and flow rate that you require for your
peak hot water demand. If you can configure one bathroom to use the
tankless heater and you have room for it and the required exhaust,
then perhaps it would work for you. (electric tankless is not
recommended unless you live in someplace like Washington State next to
a hydroelectric dam and your electricity is dirt cheap).

If it were me, and none of the cheap solutions were viable, I would go
with option #2 as the least cost option.

Beachcomber