I'd cancel. You are getting nothing in return for the inconvenience. If they don't come remove their equipment, find a handy man to disconnect their equipment and check your elements . To flush your water heater all you have to do is connect a hose to the drain valve and open the drain valve until the water runs clear.

In addition to all the above responses...

It is easy math: Shower head dispenses water at the rate of about 2.5 gal a minute - and less. Average shower lasts about 3 minutes. Therefore you use 7.5 gal of hot water per shower allowing 4 other people to take showers not running out of hot water.

Tub is a different story. Tub faucet in not flow restricted and dispenses water at high rate of volume. I don't know what kind/type of faucet you have and what's your water pressure inside the house - but generally speaking it can be easily 10 gal per minute. Therefore, you run out of hot water in about 4 minutes. If you tub has 80 gal capacity then it doesn't fill up to the rim before you run out of hot water.

Also, in colder climates and long distance between hot water heater and tub, hot water looses heat very rapidly. In addition, hot water heater is supplied with super cold water from the source taking longer to heat it up.

Combination of all of the above is a shortage of hot water at the spout.

Hope that helps / Milo

An average bath requires 30-50 gallons of water. The average shower of four minutes with an old shower head uses 20 gallons of water. With a low-flow shower head, only 10 gallons of water is used. Does this answer your question? Regards, Tom

I've never taken a 4-minute shower! 10-15 minutes (or more) is pretty common. And I do have a low-flow shower head & don't normally run out of water even if someone else is showering in the other bathroom at the same time. I'll be testing things later tonight to see how much actual hot water I get in the bath before running out & then see if the shower is also out of hot water & will post back. Thanks!

If the hot water comes from the same source for both the bath and shower, when you deplete the hot water with the bath, there will be NO hot water for the shower either.

MS. You said this was a GARDEN tub, yes? Would you say it was quite a bit bigger than a standard tub? If so, volume is your problem. Just not a big enough heater to fill that thing properly. However, many codes mandate a mixing/tempering valve to be installed on jacuzzi style tubs. These valves can fail and cause strange issues at the tub faucet only, like lack of hot water. Do the tests for hot water at shower when tub is running cold. Let us know. Oh, and if you could post a pic of the tub and the tub faucet (should be able to tell if it is a high volume faucet from pics) it may help us determine if the water heater is simply to small.

Also, I have had good experience with gas tankless water heaters as long as the water quality in your area is good. I would steer clear if you are on a well, or any water source that is less than stellar (unless you have a great filtration system and keep it up). I would not suggest an electric tankless, as they many times require electrical service upgrades and they suck the power like nothing else in the home. I have had great luck with NAVIEN tankless. The key with these for whole hole house domestic hot water is to get the largest model (240A I believe) with the internal recirculation pump and run a recirc line to the furthest fixture possible.

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I've never taken a 4-minute shower! 10-15 minutes (or more)

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Then a 10 minute shower would take only 25 gallons. Still much less then the 30/50 gallons
A tub takes. With a55 gallon heater I figure you have about one bath plus a shower before you start to run out of hot water, Regards, Tom

OK so here's my update. I ran the tub & measured how much hot water I actually get using a 5-gallon bucket & have pretty sad results, I think. I got 20 gallons of hot water followed by 3-4 gallons of warm & perhaps 2 gallons of lukewarm water before running out. So roughly 20-25 gallons of hot water in total. And the shower & sinks gave me just cold water after that so I knew I was completely out of hot water.

I'm not certain of the size of my hot water heater and it's not easily accessible to be able to get to (crawl space through small hole that is wedged shut w/ wood), but was told it was 55 gallon. Now I'm thinking it must be smaller and my problem is simply that the hot water heater is just too small :(

Thank you all for the advice, encouragement & words of wisdom. This site is awesome!

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but was told it was 55 gallon. Now I'm thinking it must be smaller and my problem is simply that the hot water heater is just too small.

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I would still cancel. If power company reps went in and looked, it seems like they would have told you that. Seems like that would have been the first thing they would have said.

Regardless of why you don't have enough hot water, you are getting nothing in the exchange with the power company. It's a one sided deal.

Well we are back to square one. Either a lower element issue or a dip tube issue, or now it could be a smaller water heater than we first thought? Sorry, but it really is time to bite the bullet, cancel the contract with the power company and hire in a licensed plumber to diagnose the system thoroughly. Now, before I called the plumber, I would at the very least find out the age and actual size of the water heater. If its older and under fifty gallons, I would suggest letting the plumber know on the phone that you may be interested in a new water heater sized correctly for your complete home with garden tub. They should be able to give you all the options that will work for you. Heck, it wouldn't hurt to get quotes and suggestions from a few different plumbing companies. Good luck and please let us know the final tally.

I agree with Lee.
A 55 gallon heater should produce more then 20 gallons of hot water. Check the lower element and if that checks out you may have a dip tube that's broken, Good luck, Tom