Water running cold too soon

[terryp1202]

Lately, I've been having a problem with my hot water not lasting long enough. The water will run very hot, which is great for showering, but it runs cold in just a couple of minutes. this hasn't happened in the past, but for the last week or so, I've been having to take super fast showers and rinse with cold water basically. Not to mention deal with the wrath of the woman of the house over this. Anywon have any suggestions?

 

[Lostvalleyguy]

The first question is: How do you heat your water? We generally have hot water tanks here and they will run cold when the water is used up. Other places use a hot water on demand system which can run cold if the heater (electric or gas) is not working properly. If you haven't changed anything it is possible that your water heating system has more than one heating element but one may have dies on you. This would allow the slow heating of water near the element but would not heat an entire tank. You would get a rush of hot but as soon as it starts mixing with the entering water, it would cool quickly.

The only other thing I can think of is a leak which is drawing off the hot water slowly but continuously and preventing you from having a full volume of hot water. If your water heating bill has risen sharply, this is the case.

 

[JohnKay]

Questions first. What supplies your hot water ? Is it stored, or a combi boiler ? A lot more info is required.

 

[terryp1202]

Thanks guys for responding. I just checked, and we have a hot water heater. It doesn't seem to have any kind of leak, and it's pretty new. There's been no unreasonable change in the heating bill either, so I'm inclined to believe it may be the element. I'll give that a looking into.

 

[JohnKay]

A "hot water heater" doesn't tell us anything. If an element (whatever type you may have) is defective, I doubt that you would have any hot water at all.