I am typically the first one in my house to take a shower and I like hot showers. I have noticed that if I take a shower first, the hot water is not that hot and doesn’t last very long. But if others take showers before me and the hot water has to recharge then the hot water is HOT and lasts a long time.
I have a 50 gallon hot water tank.
The only two things I have (besides sinks and showers) that use hot water are a dumb dishwasher and a dumb washing machine.
What I was thinking was to set up an automation in HA to somehow trigger something to use hot water for like 10 minutes in order to get the hot water heater to recharge.
Any ideas?
Honestly sounds like you need a new hot water heater. It should be keeping the temp through same, whether recently used or not. If shower is far away from hot water heater, a recirculation pump may help.
Cold pipes in the morning is not a water heater problem, that’s pretty typical.
A recirculation pump would definitely work and would have the added bonus of immediate warm water at any time, but it’s going to use extra energy 24/7 to do so–especially considering it sounds like OPs system already has a lot of passive heat loss along the pipes.
Might not be worth the extra cost if the primary problem is just the morning shower.