I live in a condo where the hot water heater serves 30 units. One of our unit owners told us that the current water temperature, which is 140 degrees, is much too hot and ahould be reset to 120 dagrees. How would this affect hot hot water supply? Will we run out of hot water?

Hi Joseph:

Your landlord is correct as any temperature above 125F can cause serious burns very quickly. As an example, at 140F a serious burn can occur in just 6 seconds of exposure, so you can see where temperatures in that range could just about kill a child if they were exposed somehow. In contrast, at 125F it can take up to 120 seconds, so quite a difference here and it is why all states that I know of require all water heating appliances to be set at 125F maximum.

In my state, we are also required to regulate all tub/shower valves to 112F-115F, so at 120F you are still way ahead of us and I promise you 112F-115F is still plenty hot for a shower for all my customers... ;)

In terms of hot water supply temperature you won't really notice any difference except that you might have to turn your shower handles a little farther on to get the temperature setting you like for a shower. Here, the temperature has nothing to do with volume or recovery rate of the water heating system... that will remain the same as it is now, just at a lower, safer temperature.

I hope that helped some. Any questions just let me know, OK?

Mark