This hack only makes sense if using 100% hot water (not diluted with the cold tap) is too cold for you. Otherwise, you're wasting a lot of energy to keep 40 gal of water at a higher temperature in your boiler all day long. For most people who are using a mix from the cold and hot water pipes for showers, washing dishes, etc., this is just a waste of money and energy.

If 100% hot water is not hot enough, by all means turn the thermostat on the boiler up, but be careful. If the water coming out of the tap is hot enough to scald you, you're in a dangerous situation, especially if there are kids around.

I actually just moved into an apartment with a very small water heater, and I like to take long hot showers myself. I found that the water would start to get cool by the end of the shower, so I turned up the temperature on my hot water heater, so I could make it last longer. It is important to make sure that the water is not too hot when it is on 100% hot though, as it can burn you. I'm going to look into getting a timer for the hot water heater, so it would minimize the time that the water has to be heated that hot.

thank you so much for this post! we just moved as well and also discovered only warm-ish water (not warm enough to wash dishes, laundry or myself). i was going to look up instructions for fixing this a little later today ... but now i don't need to!

This only works if the problem is that the temp is set too cool. There are other reasons for too-cool water coming from a water heater.

There should be a safe temp zone marked on the thermostat. If there are kids or elderly people in the house, you should set the water temperature within this zone.

If you own your home, a tankless water heater would be a worthwhile investment - not only for an endless supply of hot water but for it's efficiency plus the tax breaks for making the switch.

Keeping a hot water heater on the coolest setting that is still usable for you will also make it last longer than the standard 10 years given as a lifespan. And it will save energy.

A couple years ago, after a plumber did some work to fix loud pipe hammering, our hot water started coming out tepid.

I emailed my landlord a description of the problem and a few photos, just in case they could help the plumber spot the problem in advance of coming.

After a week of chilly showers, he came back, replaced a few components, and billed my landlord.

Later, she looked at the photos I had sent and noticed that the hot water dial had been set to nearly the off position before his second visit and was back at hot afterward -- yet it wasn't mentioned in his invoice.

After consulting another (honest) plumber, it was clear that our plumber had ripped her off by creating a problem that he could come back and "fix" while charging her for extraneous parts and labor. It was really satisfying to report the guy to the Better Business Bureau :)

lol did you guys seriously just discover that?

We have problems with our water heater turning itself OFF! We'll wake up in the morning to freezing cold water.

We have to get the screwdriver out, open the access panel, hit the re-set button and wait 30 mins for the water to heat up.

It happens at least once a month. :(

@home body--

Actually, replacing the anode-rod every 5-7 years would make the waterheater tank last 30 years or longer...
...but it's a $20 maintenance item that most homeowners ignore until the $400 waterheater starts leaking.

mariegael, I was where you are but then I thought, hey, you have to learn this stuff someplace. I had to learn to use a thermostat when I got my own place because in my parents' house it was VERBOTEN to anyone but my Dad. I'm sure I thought I would break the furnace if I even looked at it wrong there.

Is that your shower? I LOVE the fish tile.

Mariegael, that's what I thought too! And there's this thing called a pilot light in the furnace... hee hee.

This is something EVERYBODY should install. It's cheap, and saves quite a bit of energy. Not only does it keep the water warmer longer, but in the summer, it keeps the radiant heat from the water heater from warming up the AC unit (if they're next to each other, which isn't uncommon) and being less efficient.

Bah. Stupid links. It's a water heater blanket.
I'll try this again:

Here

I'm a manufacturers agent for a number of heating products including water heaters, and I'm just going to throw it out there that this is bad advice.

The 'knob' you're turning up is an aquastat that controls in the water temperature in your tank. A lot of residential heaters have an aquastat labeled cold, normal, hot, these normally refer to 100°F, 120/130°F and 140°F . I wouldn't ever recommend a temp over 120/130°F unless you're in a large commercial facility with a high water volume, in a home anything above this temperature has two draw backs, you run the risk of scalding and you're costing yourself big money.

As I mentioned, this aquastat controls the water temp in the tank, if it drops below your set point, it will call for the heating source to power (either oil, gas, electric or an indirect source like a boiler), if you keep the temp too high it will constantly be calling for this source to keep the tank up to temperature and you can expect a dramatic increase in your utility bill (and your carbon footprint).

If you're complaining about tepid water when you come home from being away for a few hours, this is the cool water in the pipes your feeling, the aquastat controls the temperature in the tank only, and without circulation (opening a tap or running a pump) the water in the pipes cool down and won't heat up until you open a tap and flush the cool water and replace it with warmer water from the tank.

From a manufacturers standpoint, your two best options are:

1 - Insulate your pipes, this will keep the water in there warmer longer. You can also install a hot water recirculation system (I use this in my house http://www.armstrongpumps.com/astroexpress/) to keep the warm water moving in your house and always at your desired temperature. I can turn on a tap or shower in any room of my house and have the temperature I want in under 5 seconds with this method.

2 - If you have access to natural gas, install an instantaneous hot water heater. This is a more expensive option, but is by far the ultimate in comfort and efficiency.

An added bonus of properly controlling your water temp before it gets to the tap, if you're on metered water, you're going to save a pile of money (not to mention the environment) by not waiting for it to warm up while it just runs down the drain.

@bepsf - thanks for the info! I was surprised to hear from various plumbers (in for other reasons) that our 12 yo heater was totally fine. We thought it was an imminent purchase after we bought our home last year, but apparently there are things to do to extend lives of these things.

To-do list: replace anode rod...

@ebarrett3- I had that problem quite a bit this summer with my water heater, thought it was on the outs. It turned out the area my water heater was in was getting very humid. Condensation was forming inside the core and dripping on the pilot light. There is a way to turn something in the hot water heater so the condensation drips into a different place. Call the manufacturer and talk to them, your problem could be a simple fix.

REMEMBER: turning up your hot water heater thermostat means that you are PAYING your energy company to keep your water hotter all the time. Your electric bill is likely to go up a little bit.

WARNING: DO NOT turn up your water heater to allow for scalding temperatures if you have young children at home. Kids end up up in hospitals with burns from the hotwater tap. In fact, we burned our own fingers when doing the dishes so frequently that we've since turned the water heater down.

Uh, ditto on all the disappointed comments. Do you mean that when your shower was on 100% hot water it was still too tepid? Otherwise, this is a ridiculous suggestion.

A long time ago a tree hugger reminded me: if you're not happy with your shower water temp, turn DOWN the opposite one as compared to turning UP the one you want. saves water and money.

I love Apartment Therapy, but this is one heck of a disappointing "hack." Helpful household hint for newbies, maybe. Hack: heck no...

@JenC

This is because dads have sixth sense for people messing with the thermostat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BpAq_cRrls

I'm with Weir on this one. I can't imagine having the hot water holding all the water at the scalding level all day every day. wow, let us know how paying your utility bills works out. if you really need to have scalding hot showers I would do yourself a favor and get an on-demand system.

i think it's blatantly obvious that you should turn down the cold water before looking into the suggestion here.

i haven't lived in a house as an adult so this tip was a pretty good one for me. i do agree that it's worth investigating other options if you find that the water heater is already in the safe zone, but what if it's clearly much lower then it needs to be? in instances like that, this tip will come in handy. it can't hurt to take a quick look.

remember - the websites name is APARTMENTtherapy, so it's silly to think that everyone reading these blogs would be totally "in the know" about all of these supposedly obvious home tips. i figured it would be easy to figure out but i'm glad that AT beat me to it and posted the info.

Loooong, hottttt showers. What an extreme waste...of energy and water! You're wasting fuel--to heat the VERY HOT water and your wasting water by taking overly long showers. Both of these things are NOT renewable resources. Sorry, but, IMHO, this kind of attitude is exactly why this country is in such a sorry state...

You guys all seem smart--maybe you can help me. The dial on my water heater is set to hot and when I'm using the kitchen or bathroom sinks everything is great but my shower is awful.

I have to turn on the hot water all the way with a just a slight turn on the cold knob to start. 7 or 8 minutes later the cold is all the way off and the water coming out is chilly. However, if I turn on the hot water in my sink right after the shower it's just as hot as usual.

Any ideas? As to why this could be? I live in an apt. building so I don't know much about the plumbing.

Do you think I? Used too many question marks?

Another thing to check is your shower fixture--the part that mixes the hot and cold water. I could not get my shower as warm as I liked so I removed the wall-mounted circular faceplate that covered the "mixer" (I am sure there are technical terms for this. You will see that there are manual adjustments you can make that will allow a greater percentage of hot water to be used. Voila--hotter showers without adjusting the tank. (Credit to my sister for this--when she moved into her new house all of the "kids" bathrooms had been set with a low hot water threshold to avoid scalding and she told me this might be my problem too.)

This is really good waste of energy - and money. If you insists on scalding yourself while taking a shower - wrap your H20 heater in an insulation blanket, and surround the hot water pipes in foam insulation tubes to cut down on the heat that will just seap out of the heater and hot water pipes into the surrounding environment.

Also, important to keep in mind, while the shower may not be that close to the water heater, the kitchen sink may be, and the water that comes out of that may be so hot that it could burn you. Careful!

I'm all about saving money and energy, but I really needed this. I have a fairly shallow tub, but I can't fill it halfway without losing all hot water. And when I take a shower, I can't turn the cold on at all, which makes the water pressure suck. Thanks for the tip!