Water Heater Help

[NiHaoMike]

Originally Posted by Ryland

it sounds like you might have the thermostat set higher then you need it if you are able to turn your hot water down on your shower, turning that temp down will save money as it's not getting as hot, it will also protect your kid from getting burned by to hot of water.
there are alot of water heater timers out there, mine runs on a 24 hour program so it treats every day of the week exactly the same, there are 7 day timers that let you change the heating times each day of the week, the most expensive timer I've seen has a temp sensor on the water heater and so it over rides the stock thermostat and lets it simply be a back up, that timer I think can both be programed and appeared to be self learning to throttle back by learning your use patterns.

How much is that smart control? Does it use contactors or is it solid state? Contactors are actually more efficient than triac or SCR solid state but require maintenance. MOSFET solid state control can have efficiency comparable to that of a contactor and also allow for PWM control, but I don't think any products on the market use that.

I think a DIY solution might be the way to go.The contactors themselves are cheap and so are the other parts. And by basing it around an open source platform like the Arduino, the users can customize it to their needs.

Yes, the thermostat is set high so it acts as a safety control. It will never switch off if everything's working right as the microcontroller will stop it from going above a setpoint.

[Frank Lee]

My gas water heater lives in the basement and I've often thought of putting a lever on the temp knob and running a string up into the bathroom so I can give it a tug oh, 20 min before a shower and leave it pretty cool the rest of the time. Showers are all I really care to have nice hot water for. Yeah tankless but they're kinda spendy.

[Ryland]

How about putting a servo on the knob? does your water heater have a forced exhaust fan? if it does putting a timer on that fan that keeps it from turning on will keep the water heater from turning on.

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

My gas water heater lives in the basement and I've often thought of putting a lever on the temp knob and running a string up into the bathroom so I can give it a tug oh, 20 min before a shower and leave it pretty cool the rest of the time. Showers are all I really care to have nice hot water for. Yeah tankless but they're kinda spendy.

[Frank Lee]

No forced exhaust. Nothing electric at all.

A servo or solonoid system would be nice. A string with a few pulleys might do the job too. Do you have a hardware suggestion? I just need to "kick it on" a bit before I use the hot water.

I've ended up on the "vacation" setting as my permanent setting! But timing affects the quality of a hot shower here. There must be a sizeable spread between the lo and hi limits on my water heater's control. If I happen to want the hot water right after it's been through a heating cycle bam! it's more than hot enough. But if I want that hot water at the tail end of the water heater's "resting cycle" it's marginal.

[gascort]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

But timing affects the quality of a hot shower here. There must be a sizeable spread between the lo and hi limits on my water heater's control. If I happen to want the hot water right after it's been through a heating cycle bam! it's more than hot enough. But if I want that hot water at the tail end of the water heater's "resting cycle" it's marginal.

I've noticed this as well. I shower with the knob set at Hot only, and have a small amount of flow coming through my low flow showerhead. Sometimes it feels a bit lukewarm, and sometimes I feel like it's burning me.
I like your idea of the pulleys and string, hope to see details if you do it.

On another note, does anyone on here have one of the shower manifolds (control valves) that does not allow temp control? For instance, you turn it on low and it's cold, then crank it up to max flow for hot?
My home had one when we moved in - well worth buying/installing the new one - it was not possible to get hot enough water with the other one - always blended hot with a percentage of cold...

[trikkonceptz]

How's this for a biatch ... last week I came home to a floor soaked in water. After exhaustive tracing I realized it was the NEW water heater. None of my fitting were leaking, nor was the tank leaking from the bottom. Once I open the service panel, I hit in the head with warm water. It was leaking from behind the thermostat control on the top panel ... grrr

Dam thing was less than 3 months old and failed ...

Now after replacing for the 3rd time I can report that it takes 20 minutes for the water to heat up to shower temperature. SO when working properly, which it now is, these things are a marvel ...