Hot water tank replacement

if the heater is in a cool spot. You might want to look at on demand or tankless water heaters.

At 23 years it is probably time.

If the present tank is working well no real reason to to go bigger. You will get faster recovery time though, if that is a factor. If you live in the north with colder water coming in it may be better.

Any reason the current size is not enough?

I live alone in a house built for 3 or 4, and when the first one leaked, I thought I'd get a smaller tank.

I take baths and continue to add a little hot water to make up for the water getting cooler (or maybe like a frog, I just think it's cooler), and by golly, with the smaller wh I would run out of hot water before my

So when that wh failed, I went back to the original size.

Seems to me, it doesn't waste money to have a bigger wh because once you heat the water it stays hot and youll use it eventually.

The only difference would be if bigger tanks radiated more to the outside, and the difference in outside dimensions is proportional I think to the 3/2 root of the volume. IOW if the tank were an enormous 8 times as big, the surface area would be 4 times as big If it's only 10% bigger, the surface would be between 4 and 5% bigger. And my tank isn't warm to the touch anyhow, so it must not be radiating much. (Plus of course the radiated heat warms my basement, which is never hot, but might not be cold even without the radiation.)

The other difference would be went you went away for more than a short while and turned off the WH. Then all the water cools off and the power you had used to heat it becomes wasted.

But other than that, I don't see why it would cost any more to run a big water heater than a small one, so get a big one.

I once filled the tub, then scooped out the water measuring how big the tub is, but I forget what I learned. ;-(

This. If you didn't have a heat or delivery problem with the old, then no need to update. It's just a matter or preference.

If considering an "on demand" heater do the math. I don't know what my bill for just heating water is, but my gas bill for the dryer, grilling, cooking and hot water is $10 to $12 a month. No way to justify the cost of equipment.

OTOH, a friend has a vacation home that is unoccupied for long periods so instead of keeping 40 gallons hot for weeks at a time the demand makes sense.

I've thought of it so that I wouldn't have to wait a long time upstairs for hot water. Too much effort to do it myself and too much money for a cheapskate like me to pay. Some day I should time it and see how long I really have to wait.

The heater itself is from $600 to $1400 depending on size. Then you either have to pipe gas and a vent or enough wire to handle at least

If the "instant" heater is in roughly the same place as the present water heater, the time it takes for hot water to get upstairs is not going to change. You can't get much more instant that 40 gallons of hot water just sitting there waiting for you to open the valve. OTOH if wasting energy doesn't bother you, you could put in a loop and let it thermal siphon. If the heater is in the basement you don't need a pump, gravity works fine. We had that in my old 1954 house when gas was cheap. They just snaked a piece of 3/8 copper tubing up to the bathroom upstairs that was also on the same wet wall as the kitchen below and we had instant hot water in both places. You hook the copper tube to the bottom of the tank and the upper most hot water pipe.

Assuming a 60 degree delta you can make about 2GPM with 18kw if my figures are right. That might work for a water saver shower head assuming you are going 2 parts hot and 1 part cold and 120 degree water (up from 60). My BIL had 3 propane units in his house but I am not sure how big they are.

There you go. No wonder it's expensive and no wonder I'm not ready to do it myself.

I decided now was the time to see how long it takes to get hot now. Slid the time from my Android phone to the middle, where it gives seconds, and turned on the water. After 10 seconds, the phone screen went black and when I got it lit up again, the clock with seconds was gone. I tried everything but couldn't get it back, and the water never got hot. Oh, no, no hot water!!!!

Then I realized I'd turned on the cold water. Tried again with the clock app. 20 seconds. That's all. It's really not worth spending $1000 to save 20 seconds twice a day, plus it takes up space under the sink and requires some maintenance every several years.

When I was 10, we moved to a ranch-style house and the water heater was at the far end from the bathroom and I had to wait for hot water. But in the dorm and then NY apartment buildings, I didn't have to wait at all. Then I moved here and the first thing I did is insulate the hot water pipe to the upstairs bathroom, in the basement. Since I only use it every 12 hours, insulation didn't help at all.

But tonight settles it. No more plans for instant hot water.

Even then if a tank WH is left on all the time, it will take a long time to recover the increased cost of a tankless. Typically going from tank to tankless may require running new gas line, possibly from the meter, to meet the increased demand and if so, that isn't cheap. Like you said, gas bill here is in the $16 range in summer and that's the tank WH and some outdoor gas grilling. That's a pilot type WH and with substantial water used. So what can the standby, no usage monthly amount be? Must be under $10. You might never recover the cost of switching to tankless. If it was me, I think I could live with the few bucks a month or just turning it off when not at the vacation house and waiting an hour for hot water.

A good fit for a tankless might be a vacation rental property where renters expect hot water when they get there and where if it's a beach house, etc there could be a lot of people showering, doing wash, etc in short periods.

A recirculating pump is another, much lower cost option if the issue is getting hot water faster.

That is where my friend has one in Ocean City. In summer, weekends may be 5 adults and 3 kids. Weekdays, one or zero. The other 6 months it can be empty for weeks and they she goes for a couple of days and empty again.

I find it works well in the shower because I turn the water on full and it easily keeps up. At the sink, you have to turn the water on enough for good flow to start the heater. Not a big deal as I only visit a week here and there.

Well sure. That's obvious. Does anyone do that?

I would have put it under the bathroom sink.

It does bother me.

V. interesting.

Most installations, for obvious reasons.

You could put a small one for the sink there, the thread was about using one to replace a tank type. Even to supply a whole bathroom with shower, I don't think it's going to be practical tp put it under the sink, that it would fit, etc. Most of these are gas too, which adds to the problems. Even with electric, you're going to need a new large capacity circuit run. If you want to solve a sink problem, you can get a small tank type to put under the sink. But that isn't the solution to the general problem.

Not the ones I have seen. You could get one that provided enough water to wash your hands but that won't serve the shower and it still needs a pretty fat wire feeding it. That is not going to go on your 20a bathroom circuit. The units my BIL had are about 2 feet long and a foot wide and being gas, they needed to be vented.

In a word? Lazy. She should just take her lazy rear out of bed four or five minutes early and run the hot water spigot some more.

Huh? What would that do? The hot water comes on quickly for a shower and takes just a short time at the sink. Produces enough that I can shower all day if I wanted to. Getting out of bed earlier would make no difference. Flip the faucet on when you pee and it will be hot when needed.

One solution would be to install a recirculating pump that is activated by a motion sensor. The only downside to that is that it then fills the cold water pipe on the entire run up with tepid hot water. So if a kitchen sink is involved or you want to pull a glass of water from some other sink to drink, instead of fresh cool water you may get either tepid or hot water that has cooled and isn't the best tasting. I thought about it at times, but not that big of a deal that it was worth doing.