Hot water takes forever - Gas heater

jigjoe

Hello. My parents had a house built back in 2007 and from what I understand, they've been having this problem pretty much the entire time. I don't know if they've ever had anyone check it out but, now that I'm living in the area I want to try and help get this fixed for them. It doesn't have a problem staying hot once its hot. The problem is the timing. I was just wondering what are some solutions to look into.

If you guys need specific details (unit specs, size of house, etc.) I can get that tomorrow since I don't live there. Thanks.

joecaption

The key is how far away is the heater from where you need hot water?
If the heater is out in the garage and the shower is on the second floor, guess what.

oh'mike

The first thing to investigate is this---is it plumbed correctly--cold to the cold side hot to the hot--

When you get there look it over and get back to us---several common causes of that---

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jigjoe

No 2nd floor but, its all throughout the house. I'll try and get more details tomorrow.

how

Not sure if I'd agree with you oh'mike.

I've only come across 3 HWT in thirty years that were hooked up backwards and none of the owners had any complaints about their hot water when I brought up the errors of their previous hook ups.

Now a broken or cracked HWT dip tube is a more common story where the entering cold water immediately migrates across to mix with the exiting hot water. The hot water supply is usually slow to build in temp until the agitation of circulating water mixes it up and becomes more predominently hot.