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I have recently changed the shower head and the pressure of the shower head is a lot greater than the last one, I now run out of hot water in like 3 minutes, is that normal ? But before I changed to the new shower head, hot water would stay on throughout the duration of a shower and continuous showers after that, but I gave one of my children a bath, the hot water would be gone before the tub was full. What problems do you think? Is the hot water heater big enough ?
Weldon, I think you are using the word pressure to actualy describe the volume of water. Your new head is allowing more water to come out every minute and now your heater can't recover fast enough. Installing a water saver shower head will extend the amount of time you will have hot water. However, we should alos talk further about your water heater, it should not run out this fast even with no shower head at all.
I understand about the water volume coming out and that makes sense, but how about the water going cold when filling up the tub for a bath ? What info do you need ?
I believe it is 2004, operates by gas, 40 gallon short. Would draining help or some sort of preventive maintanence ? I brought the house about 4-5 years ago, so the water heater had to be new.
You have 40gln hot water heater. For shower, you mix h/c water in ration 3:1. Your old shower head has flow of 4gln/minute. Once you turn hot water on , water heater will start refilling with cold water, mixing your hot water with cold. Result: you will deplete hot water in about 8 minutes.
Your new shower head depletes water slower bcs it is "water saving" shower head which uses about 2.2 gln/minute. Therefore, you may get longer showers.
Average tub holds 80glns of water. If you have 40glh heater - you will fill roughly 2/3 of the tub with hot water. If the tub happens to be cast iron one, water will start cooling rapidly as soon as it hits cold metal tub.
You may want to check the dip tube in cold(inlet)side of water heater. It is located directly under the nipple. Should be able to pull it up with a finger stuffed inside. See if it is broken or cracked. It should go about 2/3 the way down the tank. This is just one thing to check. Please let me know what you find and we will move on from there. IF dip tube is broken off or cracked, it will cause shortage of hot water because the cold incoming water is going directly to the hot outlet side. This would explain your three minute shower and lack of hot water when filling tub.
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