Water Heater to be replaced

Our hot water isn’t so good lately. Actually it’s been declining for awhile, and recently took a big leap downhill. We have a new water heater scheduled to go in on Saturday — and if that takes place … hot showers again (I mean “just hot enough” for “as long as one likes” within reason.)

It also means, enough hot water to wash out three cast iron pans in a row in the kitchen.

As well it means that we can run hot and sanitize type loads in the washer again.

Running the dishwasher will be better too, it needs hot water and when that is running, you can forget about having any hot water from any other room. I do not mean you can’t get any hot water in any other room, but if there is any, you’d be stealing it from the dishwasher if you did use it.

As it is there is some hot water if nothing has accessed it for a bit. Here’s the deal, in garden tub terms: to fill up my tub it should be that I could load a nice warm bath as deep as it can go and not run out of hot water, even have a decently hot bath — at least a totally soakable enjoyable experience right away. It should be possible for something else to be using hot water from the tap at the same time, within reason.

Now how it is: Turn the tap on and the hot water starts, and it’s hot, no doubt, but it’s not too hot to stick your foot into. Let the hot water run into the garden tub by itself until the water turns to cool. What you are left with is a few inches of water that you can sit in. (Ladies who have given birth particularly will know this as a “sitz bath”)

It’s purely not much fun, being pregnant and wanting a nice warm bath takes over a half-hour to attain soakability beginnings. One must wait about 15-20 minutes, if no one else is using hot water, to get enough warm enough water to fill the tub the rest of the way. At no time is one even having to use the “cold water” tap in the tub, the water is never “too hot”

Like in the kitchen sink, the furthest faucet from the water heater, one turns on the hot water and waits a bit for it to come and when it does, it’s just straight from the hot water tap to rinse out something, wash ones hands, etc. No cold water is used except for when one wants plain cold water. Warm water is attainable by running the hot water for just a short while.

It’s like we have a “5-10 gallon warm to very, very, very warm water heater” :rolleyes: .

Our current tank is going on in age, it’ll be 10-years-old near the end of the year. It’s a 40-gallon tank, which isn’t quite enough for our family size. A much bigger tank would be preferred, but just some bigger is better by far. We are getting a 50-gallon tank installed.

Both hubby and I are interested in tankless water heaters, but we don’t get gas service here, don’t have a propane tank for the house. 🙁 I sure wish we did have that ability, then we could have a gas stove as well. 🙂

So when I speak of stoves and water heaters, I am talking “electric” from the “no choice” arena, not the “preference arena” nope.