Who's handy with hot water heaters?

So, the joys of living on your own is you get to deal with fun stuff like this.

My hot water, specifically when taking a shower, is, well, not hot. It stays hot for a grand total of about 2 minutes. Turn the hot up (and therefore the cold down) and it's hot for another minute, and so on, until there's no hot left. Four minute showers are not my idea of fun. The way I look at it, if I'm paying for the electric to heat the water, I should be able to take hour-long showers if I want haha. The heater has an Energy Star label on it, not sure if that's the brand or not, and has three copper pipes coming out of the top, as well as a large power line, but I'm fairly certain it's an electric, not gas, heater.

Does anyone know of anything I can try to remedy this problem? My landlord doesn't seem to care, despite a few phone calls. Thanks.

There should be a knob on the water heater its self to adjust the temperature - with the required warning sticker about scalding yourself and/or killing someone.

I've found their recommended setting typically leaves you in the cold during our midwestern winters. I'll generally leave ours in the suggested setting the rest of the year though, and turn it up a bit more for the colder months.

^ Agreed. The wife prefers to leave the shower beat red. So I had to turn ours up. Twice.

Is it a shared heater? Roommates?

Otherwise, what Pete said. Try turning it up a bit, just be careful not to burn yourself. If that doesn't help, it might be dead.

^^^^ What he said.

depending on whether or not you have hard water in your area, you may want to drain the tank to remove accumulated sediment in the tank, that reduces the capacity of the tank. Do it after your shower....

Chebbie

Sounds to me like you have a heating element burnt out. There's generally two of them. If you have a voltmeter they are easy to test. Just make REAL sure the power is off! These things run on 240V which is NOT a plaything. It will seriously kill you if you grab it the wrong way.

They look like this:

Check across the two screw terminals, this can be done with the element still in the tank. They vary somewhat but IIRC should be around 10-15 ohms. You need to disconnect the wires from the element before testing, as I said make REAL sure the power is off!

Quick page on this:

http://wetheadmedia.com/how-to-change-a-water-heater-element/

If its a new one, turn up the settings as discussed and check. If its an older one, it could be the thermostats or the elements (there are (should be) two of each). I had one that wouldn't work for crap. Changed everything in it twice. Of course in was under the house in the crawlspace. Finally realized the water inlet tube had fallen off and cold water was mixing with the hot as soon as you cracked open the knob. As soon as we were offered natural gas service we jumped on it. Talk about a long hot shower!

whats the capacity of the heater?

are you using a low flow shower head? (i know i hate them too, but i get an extra 5-10min if i use low flow)

without using low flow (i can kinda adjust mine) i only get about 15min of shower time with hot water at my house.

makes me miss living in the dorms.. as much as roommates suck, hour long scalding hot showers ROCKED

you've got a bad heating element. There will be one at the top, and one at the bottom. The other one is likely nearing it's end.

Shut off the breaker, take off the access panels, check exactly what wattage and mounting style elements you need. Proceed to friendly hardware store, purchase elements (They aren't toooooo expensive). Shut off the water valves and drain the tank using a hose connected at the bottom of the tank. Unscrew or unbolt both elements.

If your tank has a foot of scaley stuff in the bottom like mine did, dig all that stuff out. You will regain water capacity. Install new heaters and put it all back together, open the water valves, turn on the breaker, and you should be able to have a long hot shower in about an hour.

If it's a 2-element heater, and you are only getting 4 minutes of hot water from it, I'm gonna suggest the dip tube also. Even if one element was bad, over a period of hours, the one remaining would heat the whole tank (not as much as 2 would), and you would get more time out of it. The only way to check/remedy this is to disconnect the cold water supply line and use a probe to feel whether the dip tube is present. It's kinda rare for them to do that, but I have seen it happen.An appliance specialty store may be able to supply a new dip tube, but if the original has fallen off in the tank, it will have to live there forever; gettting one out would be near impossible.

I say bug hell out of your landlord until he gets a plumber over there. Cold showers suck.

To light a fire under the landlord (sorry, I couldn't resist the pun) you could give a call to the local g'vt office that inspects rental properties - sufficient hot water may be a code violation, and I'd bet there's more than one other violation on the property no matter how nice it seems.

Before you do that, though, I'd send a letter to the landlord. Do you have a written lease? Does it say anything about supplying hot water? Even if none of the above, a written complaint usually gets better results than a phone call, and leaves a paper trail in case you decide to take it to the next level.

See if you can find a date stamp on it somewhere. Average life expectancy of a water heater is 10 years.

here is another question.. how much water are you using when you shower? I have a VERY small heater in this apartment (it sits under the kitchen counter) and taking a bath is out of the question, but if I use just enough water to get some pressure out of the shower head.. I can take a 20 minute shower.

I also turned up the heat.

After three years of dealing with this.. I am going to be replacing the heater with a tankless out of my own pocket. They are cheap enough and in my opinion, worth it for money saved and length of showers and baths

Why do you need to heat hot water?

It's a water heater, not a HOT water heater, maybe a hot water maker?

Well, it's not your hot water heater. Mess with it at your own legal peril.

Rather doubt it's the hot water heater, from your description. Even the punniest hot water heater will supply hot water longer than that.

Three copper lines (pipes?) Interesting. Follow those lines and I suspect you may find a tempering valve. Even cuter, you may find a timing device.

We had similar problems with ours until I set the temp on "baby-scald."

Kill power to the heater and drain the thing out. There should be a valve and garden hose hook up at the bottom. Mineral deposits may have filled the bottom of the tank minimizing the heating element effectiveness and if deep enough, cutting capacity of the tank.

My son had one in his apartment in Atlanta, plenty of hot for four showers in the morning.

Dan

If it hasn't been drained in ages though... it might never seal up again 100% after the draining.

Your third copper line is the blow-off valve. Normal. Necessary.

Your thermostat adjustments may be located under a cover on the square box near the bottom. Unscrew the cover, perhaps move aside the insulation, and you should see adjustment screws with little increment gauges on them. Usually adjust with a screwdriver.

But I'm betting your tank is 1/2 full of sediment.

I pay invoices on these mother berkeleyers all the time. I work for a property management company. If the unit is small, you're not going to get 20 minute showers out of it. You haven't got a leg to stand on if you try to bring it up as a maintenance issue. But if there truly is something wrong with it, ask your leasing office to come out and test it. They should have an HVAC / plumbing team that is well trained and that should spot a bad water heater (by the way, I always change the Purchase Order descriptions to "water heater" as opposed to "hot water heater" or "hot water tank").

This same scenario has happened to me...recently. In my case, (50 gal GE electric) the lower element was bad. A new element is less than $15 (unless you get the dee-lux super duper one like I did that was $20, I think) and takes about 1/2 to 1 hour to put in including the draining and refilling of the tank.

Contrary to popular belief, the top element alone will never heat more than the water at and above its own level (heat rises). With the bad lower element, my 50 gallon water heater got me about 5 minutes of shower before it started getting cold, when normally I could get several times that.

Your landlord should handle this. If he doesn't, I believe you have the right to have the work done and bill him/take the cost out of next month's rent. If he is giving you issues with this, you'd better start documenting any and all issues past, present and future.

Yowza, do NOT block that third line!!! It's the pressure relief valve line, it should have a lever operated safety valve in it but NOT a faucet of any kind. Did you see the Mythbusters where they made one explode that way?

I have a SC home inspection license, as part of the courses we covered this very subject. During the course, we were shown pictures of a mobile home which had one explode; it blew a roughly 6' diameter hole in the outer wall plus it flew through the closet door where it was mounted and wound up in a bedroom across the hall. Here's a picture of one that let go:

carzan wrote: This same scenario has happened to me...recently. In my case, (50 gal GE electric) the lower element was bad. A new element is less than $15 (unless you get the dee-lux super duper one like I did that was $20, I think) and takes about 1/2 to 1 hour to put in including the draining and refilling of the tank. Contrary to popular belief, the top element alone will never heat more than the water at and above its own level (heat rises). With the bad lower element, my 50 gallon water heater got me about 5 minutes of shower before it started getting cold, when normally I could get several times that. Your landlord should handle this. If he doesn't, I believe you have the right to have the work done and bill him/take the cost out of next month's rent. If he is giving you issues with this, you'd better start documenting any and all issues past, present and future.

Ok, before you go and short your rent, make sure you don't do anything stupid that will get you evicted. Even IF you have a maintenance issue that is legitimate, you still have to pay your rent ON TIME! The way you light a fire under your landlords butt is by opening up an escrow account I believe with your local district court. If you just withold your rent (or short it to cover the cost of a repair) you'll end up down at the district court under much less friendly circumstances and you will end up paying for more than your rent.

Having been on both sides of the renting equation, whether yours is an individual house or a complex of hundreds of units, it's best to be nice and take the path of least resistance. Call and say there is no leak, but a problem described as "Little hot water" could someone take a look, not an emergency..... Only after that can you bump it up to whatever action is required. There are landlords who only appreciate good tenants, but start off on the wrong foot.... It's hard to "Un-ring" a bell (ever used the "C" word with the object of your affections? then you know what I mean....)