[twyee827]

I appear to have a problem with my hot water. The hot water throughout my house will not stay hot. I turn on the hot water in my bathrooms and kitchen and the water stays hot for a minute or so and then gradually becomes cold. I have checked my hot water heater which appears to be working fine. I have adjusted the temperature on my hot water tank to its highest temperature.

[massplumber2008]

Hi Twyee827...

Take a hose and attach it to the drain at the front, bottom of your water heater and run it for say 5 minutes. Then tell me if the water is still hot at the end of 5 minutes. If it is then I suspect that the DIP TUBE in your water heater may have cracked or broken off from the cold water inlet of the water heater.

Here, a good dip tube delivers cold water to the bottom of the water heater and the cold water gets heated and rises to the top. Meanwhile the hot water feeds out the hot water outlet to the home.. all working in a balanced manner. When the dip tube breaks it allows cold water to feed almost directly to the hot water outlet of the water heater resulting in about a minute of hot water and then cold water after that, much like you describe... ;)

To fix this, you would need to shut off the cold water flow into the water heater and then cut into the cold water tubing and get into the cold water tapping of the heater and see how the dip tube looks. The dip tube can be a separate dip tube UNDER the cold water nipple or it could be attached directly to the cold water nipple itself.

Let me know what you think here...

MARK