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?
If you have “delay start” functions on your washing machines (dish & clothes), you can either do dishes overnight or clothes overnight as close to 3-4am as possible (assuming you’re waking up around 6 or 7).
There is not a great way to “automate” the heating of water in a traditional water heater and it would be a safety hazard to do so.
The only other good option is an inline electric water heater, but the cost of that will outweigh anything else.
If you’re eager to spend money on this, I’d look into newer appliances that you can set to run at a certain time of day if there is absolutely no functionality available.
This should be higher. No wasted water, low tech, and no cost. If the water heater has trouble retaining heat in the water then it definitely seems like an issue with the water heater itself, but this approach will reliably trigger a larger batch of fully reheated water at just the right time. Plus, if the water heater is electric then you’re even use electricity at non peak hours.
Solenoid valve is the quick and dirty answer.
The right answer is to get your water heater serviced to figure out what’s wrong with it.
Lots of other good ideas here. I’ll just add some thoughts.
Adding some pipe insulation from the hot water heater to your shower might help a bit.
I suppose you could add some instant hot water heater system or even a second small hot water heater close to your shower to eliminate the heat up time.
If you are this interested it might be worth having a plumber come out to consult about what the issue might be and what the possibilities are. A lot might depend on your specific setup and how accessible the pipes are without completely ripping apart your walls.
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.
Look into hot water circulating pumps.
They may be retrofit into existing home plumbing, are designed to address this exact use case, can be automated (old school timer or more intelligent with a smart switch), and will be significantly better for the environment/ your water bill. Essentially, there’s a pump located in your hot water tank closet and a small valve installed under your bathroom sink tap. They cost about $100 (though they say that’s recouped quickly because you’re not letting cold water run as long anymore), though you’ll likely need a plumber — it’s straight forward and common.
Now attached to a smart plug you could trigger it to turn on 10 minutes before your morning alarm, not run when you’re on vacation, run when your location leaves the gym (assuming you shower at home), etc.