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i just bought a house and as a first time home owner i'm trying to learn a few things.
the master bath was remodeled and has AMAZING water pressure, i feel like a waterfall is on me and the water gets crazy hot too, only problem is the water hot water is pretty much gone after 5 minutes. there is a handheld shower head as well and if i use only that the water lasts considerably longer.
my old apartment also had super hot water and i would say normal pressure, i used the shower to give my daughter baths at the old place and i would direct the shower to a very large clear tote bin which would take about 3-4 minutes to fill up. the same tote at this place with the strong showerhead takes 20 seconds.
am i really getting the same (more or less) amount of hot water but the new homes showerhead moves so much more water in a shorter amount of time that 5 minutes is accurate for that amount of flow?
is there anything i can do to slow down the flow without a new showerhead? i mean...i LOVE the flow, its relaxing and almost a massage but i'd like to be in there sometimes more than 5 minutes.
Maybe the water flow in your house is too much. Experiment with the flow shut off valve outside. If you can reduce the flow inside your pipes will last longer and your water bill will be less. Reduce it enough so that the faucets and shower are comfortable.
You could get a low-flow 2.5 gpm shower head, but it won't feel as good
Even at crazy high flow rates, you shouldn't be running out of hot water in just 5 minutes. It is possible your water heater is defective, causing limited availability of hot water. Could be a simple problem, or might need to replace the whole heater.
How many gallons is your water heater? If you take a 5 gallon bucket, how long does this shower take to fill the bucket?
The new (aka boring, EPA-restricted, low-flow) shower heads limit flow to 2.5 gpm, so will take 2 minutes to fill the bucket.
or just check the temp setting on the water heater dial.
True story that just happened: My parents complained about not having hot water for years(which isn't much of a problem for awhile since their WH is in the attic and the water is plenty warm in the summer naturally). However, over the winters, the water was barely warm - I was there 2 winters ago and can't believe how they put up with it. This winter they decided they've had enough cold showers and finally called in a plumber to replace the unit. It turned out the dial on the temp was at the lowest and all the plumber did was simply turned the dial way up. My parents said they never touched the dial but someone probably bumped it when they moved stuff in/out of the attic some time ago.
This was happening to a friend of mine recently - more than adequate hot water in the kitchen, and even from the bath faucet, but in the shower the hot water would give out (or seem to give out) really quickly. The fault was the scald protector device, inside the shower head - when they go defective, they cut off the hot water flow even when the water's not that warm.
That particuarly sounds like it might be your problem, since you say the hand-held seems to work fine. So my money is that if you change the scald protector (or just the whole shower head), your problem will be solved.
- How many gallons is your hot water heater?
- What temp is it set at?
- Do you have an anti scald device on the shower and a pressure limiter?
- Is the shower far from the hot water heater?
122F is the recomended setting.
Is that an electric or gas water heater?
You can read more here: Only 5 minutes
water heater is from 2003, was installed 2006. (i guess the company had extra stock on hand but im going by the sellers disclosure) furnace was also replaced in 2006 (model is from 2006)
it is a 50G water heater and is a gas heater with the temp currently set to its hottest
bradford white corp defender series to be kinda exact
the heater is in the basement and the shower in question on the 2nd floor
i do not know about whats going on in the shower head(flow control or scald protector) but like i mentioned before, i have quickly accessibly hot water in every faucet in the house and all will last a long time but the master showerhead is depletes the hot water in about 5 minutes. I'm not sure what the GPM is but i will grab a 5gal bucket and time how long that takes.
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You could get a low-flow 2.5 gpm shower head, but it won't feel as good
