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?
Is it a gas or electric water heater?
If it’s electric you can add a tank temp sensor (to outside of tank) and a high current relay to bypass the lower thermostat and turn on the heater on command. When your sensor indicates the tank is at the desired temp you can turn off the bypass.
You might be able to do something similar on a gas water heater, but I don’t know enough about them to say.
If you only care about the shower in the morning, get a Thermostatic Shutoff Valve (TSV). Sounds much more complicated than it is. You let your shower run until it detects hot enough water, then slows to a trickle. You pull a small hanging cord and it opens back up, hot and ready shower. They’re like $20. We’ve had one for years and works great. It’s dumb, but it works.
My shower does this same thing. I’m a tenant and the landlord never seems to have done any preventative maintenance for their home (I’m their first tenant). It definitely is a hotter shower after someone else has already used hot water somewhere else in the house.
Not sure if this is possible or more cost effective, but can you automate or set a timer on your washing machine to do a hot rinse cycle shortly before you wake up?
You should do away with it altogether and get an inline heater. They’re magical! Hot water for hours. I’ll never go back.
Hot water heaters don’t work like this. Sounds like you have something wrong with the hot water heater itself.
When you first use it the water will be at the hottest point. As you continue to use the temperature will slowly go down to a certain point where the heating element can keep up with the water outgoing.
I’d get the it checked by a plumber. May need to replace heating element or the hot water heater itself.