11 year old Bradford/White water heater runs out of hot water in less time than it takes to take a shower. Has very hot water to begin with. Is it time to replace?

Hi Mkblmr...

I need to know if this is an electric water heater or a gas-fired water heater. OK?

Once I know that and I get back in I can tell you more. Otherwise, one of the other plumbers/mechanics will post a reply once the info. Arrives.

We are all volunteers here, so bear with us and we will get a helpful answer to you within a reasonable time, OK?

Mark

PS, for fun, from your description I want to guess you have an ELECTRIC water heater... ;) Confirm or deny, OK... :)

It is a gas water heater. The tank does not appear to be leaking, actually looks only a few years old. Talked to techs at Brad/White and they seemed to think some kind of mixer valve issue. Let the tank fill and heat a couple of hours and turned on kitchen and bathroom faucets (sinks only) in 5 min. water was turning lukewarm as opposed to very hot when first turned on. Limping by for now

OK,

Let's try something...

Shut off the hot water shutoffs (under sinks) to every SINGLE HANDLE FAUCET in the home... then try running the shower and see if the issue resolves itself.

If it does, you would turn on one hot water shutoff at a time and run the shower until the problem pops back up. When the problem shows up again, you have found the faucet and know which mixer cartridge to replace... ;)

If this test doesn't show anything then the issue could be in the shower valve(s) itself and it may even be worth replacing the mixer cartridge to eliminate it as the culprit.

If all this fails to resolve the issue then I would begin to suspect that the DIP TUBE in the water heater is defective and needs to be replaced.

Try the shutoff/single lever faucets test and let me know what you find, OK?

Mark