Our house is 15 years old and has the original gas powered tank heater. I enjoy an almost scalding hot shower in the morning. Lately , I have it cranked full blast and the water is not hot enough for me. I live in a warm climate, if that makes any difference. Started looking online and there seems to be a lot of options. I know some of my neighbors have gotten tankless water heaters, but know nothing about them.
Would welcome suggestions from knowledgeable CCers. Thanks in advance.
How long do you plan to live in your house?
What kind of heat do you currently have?
The electric ones are a little faster (heat within a few seconds) and supposedly more efficient than the gas ones. The gas ones take longer to heat up, and are more costly up front. We have a gas one (Rinnai), but it was installed with the house.
Besides the added wait time for hot water (and wasted water while waiting), they are pretty nice to have! They also take up less space than the big tank versions.
Have you measured the actual water temperature?
Correction to my post above… the gas ones actually have a faster recovery rate and cost less in the long run. Go with gas if you are going to get one!
Had our 17 yr old gas one replaced with a gas Bradford White 2 years ago.
Look for a 12 yr warranty, glass lined, brass fittings gas heater. Probably your best bet.
Our old one just stopped heating the water hot enough. We should have replaced it sooner. So far very happy.
Read what you can about tankless. Warranty, repair costs, cost of running it, water flow and pressure, how many appliances you can run at once etc. electric control panels? Will you have hot water if the electric goes out?
Depending on the unit you buy your gas water heater may work without electricity.
Good luck.
@thumper1: will live here for the foreseeable future and we have electric heat, but rarely used here in FL. Gas for the stove, spa and hot water heater
@ucbalumnus: haven’t actually taken the water temperature, but maxed the setting on the heater. In addition, I used to have the shower lever turned about 3/4 of the way, now have it cranked all the way and still not hot enough.
Did you flush it out and make sure it isn’t filled with sediment? Is there a decent flame? Does it leak?
@Parent1337 I’m not a “home improvement” guy. How long do these things typically last? Perhaps I need to call a plumber before investigating a new one. I just know that several of my neighbors (whose homes were built the same time as ours) have replaced theirs.
15 years is probably nearing the end of its life, especially if it was a cheap one put in by the builder. The problem with these water heaters is that there may be little or no sign of an impending death until it happens. Worst case is it leaks and floods your basement or wherever it’s located. I would recommend you get it replaced as soon as you can before you have problems. I had mine replaced by Home Depot about 15 years ago with one that had the 12 year warranty. I believe it was a GE brand though I don’t remember who actually made it.
15 years is a pretty long time, the life of a hot water heater depends on a lot of factors, how much it is used, and also things like how hard your water is (mine is very hard, and as a result, hot water heaters don’t last as long as they should). With the OP’s, it could be the thermostat is bad, but more likely it is that the unit has sediment in it, probably mineral deposits, and the heating mechanism isn’t as efficient (among other things, the sediment can act as a kind of insulator, or at least that is what I have been told.
Tankless heaters are interesting, it is nice to think about ‘unlimited hot water’, but there are limits, a lot of the units won’t work if there is more than one thing demanding hot water, for example, and unless the units are better than when I looked into it about 10 years ago, they may not work well in cold climates, they may not be able to heat the water enough to be good for hot water (again, things may have changed).
You can try flushing the hot water heater and see if that works, there is a spigot on the heater, if you put a hose on that, and put the other in in a drain of some sort (maybe out a window, into a laundry sink, sub pump well), and let it flush through for a while, it will flush out sediment, and you may find it works better.
We have a 50 gallon Bradford White “Defender” gas hot water heater and we love it. Endless supplies of piping hot water. Two showers can run at the same time and you don’t even notice. You can run your dishwasher or do a load of laundry and someone else can take a shower. And if the power goes out, you still have hot water (something we learned to value after Sandy and Irene).
What Sue said. We have a similar setup. The heater also has a recirculating pump, so sediment does not get accumulated on the bottom (plus, we drain some hot water from the bottom of it periodically when I need water for car wash). If you live in a climate where power outages are common, a heater with a tank is a necessity.
By chance do you have an appliance warranty? I purchased a plan from Sears that covers all my appliances including the hot water heater, heating, ac, and any plumbing issues.
If that hot water heater is that old…get it replaced. We made the mistake of thinking we could just flush ours at our old house. Had that done…lots of sediment. About a month later…the whole bottom just rotted out and we had gallons no gallons of water in our basement. We replaced the thing…and it had a three year warranty. Three years and two weeks later…it died. I whined…and they replaced it again. Then we sold the house.
We have an oil fired burner with forced hot water heat. Our hot water is somehow tied into our boiler…no bug hot water tank. We seem to have an end,ess supply!
We just purchased a 50 gallon Rheem performance platinum, gas water heater. My husband researched it, and said it is very highly rated, has a 12 year warranty. If your water heater is 15 years old and having problems, I wouldn’t spend any money fixing it, I’d just replace it. My husband decided to install it himself, and it seemed like more work than expected. Nowadays they make you have more gadgets on it for safety, which is probably a good thing. Dealing with gas makes me nervous, especially since we can only turn it off at the source (and in an emergency, at the meter). We replaced two 50 gallon water heaters, that just seemed like too much for just us. This heater heats up incredibly fast, and is apparently very efficient. Way too hot for me, so we’ll dial it down.
However, now he’s doing more work on it, so we had to drain it, and I’m still waiting to wash my clothes and take a shower!
Darn, @busdriver11 – we’re 600 fee above the max certified altitude for that one. 
We need to replace ours – I think it is coming on to 20 years old. Yikes.
Bus, we have the grandpa of your heater. I told Mr. we need to replace it, but the furnace guy talked him out of it. Hope the grandson has his grandpa’s genes. 
Oh my, arabrab, 20 years old? Think you’ve been living on borrowed time!!! Ugh, let me tell you a horror story about hot water heater leaks. Had one in a rental condo that we own. Apparently it was leaking, and the tenant didn’t notice until the wood floors started to mold. Big insurance claim, covered most of it, but they don’t cover the appliance. Unfortunately the hot water heater was actually a bizarre contraption that also has to do with heat in the condo, a hydrostatic water heater, very uncommon for the PNW. Cost us $6K to replace it. Moral of the story, if it’s old, either replace it or check it for leaks all the time!!
And Bunsen, actually, we wouldn’t have replaced our heater for awhile, but it started spewing water from the top. Thank GOD my husband was home, and shut the water off. What if we had both been gone for a week? It could have destroyed much of the house. It was probably the relief valve and maybe a minor fix, but we figured, what’s the point of calling in someone to repair it for $200 plus dollars when it needs to be replaced anyways? Though I admit, otherwise we would have procrastinated. We don’t even get tuneups in our cars, we just wait till they break. Actually, that works out pretty good, so far!
We did not do a single tune up on our house furnace. Probably saved close to $2,000 or even more over those 16 years! The blower motor finally broke, but those things do break down.
Plumbing things scare the bejezus out of me. I keep nagging Mr. that the 17 yr old heater has to go. Probably will get the same thing as you did, Bus. The furnace dude said the same thing: if the water heater starts to spew water, it has to go. No one would even think about patching up a rusted teakettle… and a water heater is not much different.
Audiophile, I think the collective wisdom of this thread says: replace the thing ASAP.