How To Heat Up The Water at Home

One of our home indulgences–taking scalding hot showers (especially when the temps drop outside). So you can imagine our frustration when we jumped in the shower after a long day of moving only to discover lukewarm water. A quick email to our handyman delivered a quick and easy how to for this problem.

1. Locate your hot water heater. At our old apartment, our hot water heater was underneath the house (that only the landlord had the key to unlock). Luckily, in our new place, our water heater is right off of the kitchen for easy access.

2. Look for a large round knob towards the bottom of the water heater (ours is black). When we moved in, the knob was set at “Warm,” which was way too cold for us.

3. Turn the knob to the desired temperature (towards “Hot”) and test the water temp at a kitchen or bathroom sink.

4. Keep moving the knob towards “Hot” until it reaches your preferred water temperature.

Additional Notes: Even though our hot water heater was cool to the touch, be careful when turning the temperature dial. If you’ve just taken a shower or used the hot water, it’s likely that the unit will be hot to the touch.

(Images: Beth Zeigler)