Rheem Electric Water Heater Issue

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Brad Whelan

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Hello, I'm hoping to get some advice from you fine folks in this community regarding a Rheem electric water heater. My wife and I recently moved into a condo about a week ago, and we've noticed almost immediately that the hot water during showers does not last very long at all (which translates to about 15 minutes max for one person). Even allowing the hot water to replenish over a period of 25-30 minutes seems to make no difference, as the next person who then takes a shower winds up with luke warm/cold water after only a couple of minutes... since we do not own this property, and neither of us possess any knowledge about heating/cooling systems, I wanted to ask the question: does this sound like the heater is in need of repair? I wanted to be sure before I reach out to the owners to request they send a repairman out (since the guy was literally just here to fix another unrelated issue). The heater appears to be well past its lifespan with a manufacture date of 10/89, but again... what do I know? The particulars for this water heater are as follows:

Rheem (Rheemglas Standard) electric water heater
Serial No. R1089B09400
Model No. 61V52D
Capacity: 50 Gallons

Any words of advice or suggestions are totally welcome at this point! Thanks so much in advance for your help!

-Brad
 

Reach4

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I would start by turning the water heater hotter, and use a mix of hot and cold to shower with.

The landlord could put in new lower GPM shower head. 2.5 GPM is now the standard maximum, but there are shower heads that use a much lower flow.

Recovery time on most electrics is longer than for most gas water heaters.
 
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Brad Whelan

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I would start by turning the water heater hotter, and use a mix of hot and cold to shower with.

The landlord could put in new lower GPM shower head. 2.5 GPM is now the standard maximum, but there are shower heads that use a much lower flow.

Recovery time on most electrics is longer than for most gas water heaters.

Thanks for your reply, Reach4! One of the recent fixes we had them perform was a shower head swap because the one was leaking extensively when we moved in and would spray water sideways from the fitting when in use. So they've since replaced that old leaky one with a 2.0 GPM shower head now. We are also using a mix of hot & cold as well whenever we shower.

I will have to see what the temperature the heater is currently set to though and see if that makes a difference. Thanks again for your help! I'll post back to see if this makes a difference.
 

Terry

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Your water heater is 26 years old.
It may be that it is starting to fill with deposits which reduce the volume, The dip tube could be breaking off, or perhaps the lower element has quit working.
Or like mentioned above, you may need a low-flow shower head to stretch the water usage.
 

Brad Whelan

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Hi Terry, thanks for your reply. With that being said, would you think it unreasonable to request the owners send a repairman out to take a look at the state of the heater?? They've already replaced the shower head with a 2.0 GPM rating. I'm just basically trying to confirm that what we're experiencing with the water heater isn't just us misunderstanding the function of the water heater (which may be interpreted as us simply complaining) vs. that what we've experienced and described would legitimately warrant a look.
 
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Master Plumber Mark

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you need a new water heater... its 26 years old...
they can install new elements and a new dip tube if they wish to but
that is completely stupid.......

just lie and tell them your wife is a bitch and she is making your life a living hell
and they got to make her happy or you will have to move out soon to keep
your sanity..... say it with sincerity and desperation in your voice and they will
instantly understand your situation.......
 

Brad Whelan

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Haha! Thanks for that Mark -- that's all I needed to hear! I'll reach out and see if we can get it replaced. Thanks for all of your advice/suggestions you guys -- it's very much appreciated!
 

Jadnashua

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Where I live, to meet current codes, the WH requires a tempering valve. This is installed at the WH, and prevents the outlet from being too hot in case you've set the tank temp higher. Setting the tank temp higher, as said, means you can get a longer shower since you're using less hot with it, since you've already cooled it off some. By doing this, you'll decrease the efficiency slightly since the bigger the difference between the water and the air outside of the tank, the more heat will be lost, but on a modern electric WH, they're pretty efficient already.

Let's say your using 1.5g hot and 0.5g cold now, if the WH was running hotter, it might end up something like 1g hot to 1g cold to get he same temp outlet...obviously, you'd end up with a longer shower before things cooled off. You cannot use the whole tank before things get cooled off via the mixing of the incoming, cold water, but you should be able to get about 40g out of a 50g WH before it started to cool off, and maybe a bit more if you have a tempering valve.
 
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