New Gas Water Heater - Less Hot Water

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shahlaw

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All, these forums are great, thank you in advance for any thoughts you may have.

I just replaced my 10 year old gas water heater. The old tank was 40 gallons. The new one is 50 gallons. I have the heat setting on the second highest option yet the hot water runs out quicker than my old tank (i.e., the hot water would last for 3 consecutive showers and now seems to get cold only after 2). The tank was purchased from Home Depot (I believe a GE brand).

Any thoughts (I'm not sure what other info may be relevant) as to the cause? My fear is that the installation may not have been up to par.

Thanks.
 
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Depending on how much hot water you get before it cools this might indicate a dip tube problem (too short? broken?)

Time of year might be the issue...colder weather means colder incoming water. (Where I live the supply water temp has dropped from about 68 F late summer into the 50 F range, and it will continue to drop throughout Jan. and Feb.) This will result in two things: the mix at the shower valve will require more hot water than it would have a month or two ago to acheive the same shower temperature, and the colder feed into the water heater will also result in a more rapid drop off in temp. As a result the same shower in my locale uses about 50% more hotwater in winter than it does in summer.

Did you ever measure the hotwater temp of the old heater? Have you measured it with the new one? My in-laws' 18 year old (or something like that) water heater seems to run hot as hades and the hot water in it lasts seemingly forever. I'm careful of that one with the kids because of its scald potential. When they replace it and set the dial to the default setting of 120-125 F they won't have nearly as much apparent capacity I suppose. (I realize you have yours cranked already...but I wonder if the old one went higher?)
 

VTXdude

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Did you ever measure the hotwater temp of the old heater? Have you measured it with the new one? My in-laws' 18 year old (or something like that) water heater seems to run hot as hades and the hot water in it lasts seemingly forever. I'm careful of that one with the kids because of its scald potential. When they replace it and set the dial to the default setting of 120-125 F they won't have nearly as much apparent capacity I suppose. (I realize you have yours cranked already...but I wonder if the old one went higher?)


My old water heater I had turned up pretty high and hot water did seem to last quite awhile before kicking on....with the new heater set at about 125 degrees it seems to turn on less than 5 minutes into the shower
 

Cass

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What is the btu input of the new heater?

what was the btu input of the old one?

You need to check the water temp with a thermometer..
 
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