Water heater temperature

[jjrbus]

Too hot outside, so time on my hands to mull things over.

I find RV shower to be a pain. Trying to get the temperature right, wasting water on a limited supply, the dripping of the RV type shower head. If you know what I mean, you know what I mean.

Seems like a practical answer is a warm water tank, one that heats water to a reasonable temperature. Any such thing?

[Sjm9911]

I think some use something like this
https://www.google.com/search?q=mixing+valve+for+camper+shower+to.regulaate+temp&oq=mixing+valve+for+camper+shower+to.regulaate+temp&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i10i160l2.12309j0j4&client=ms-android-att-us-rvc3&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#oshopproduct=gid:17031744422212463474,mid:576462679379661889,oid:16818771997018407337,iid:8973696960797328739,pvt:hg&oshop=apv
I never installed one though.

[bighatnohorse]

steveh27 wrote:
I leave the water heater off, only turning it on 18-20 minutes before taking a shower. That gets the hot water to a temp I can use without cold water. It may take a few tries to figure out how long to leave it on. Saves a lot of water.

Is that using GAS or ELECTRIC?

When using gas to heat the water, I figure about 12 minutes to reach comfortable hot shower water.
Electric seems to take a little more time.

[C_Schomer]

They are made to fit thru the 1" pipe hole. Craig

[Skibane]

^I'm surprised that you could squeeze a folded heating element in there.

It'll probably outlive your great-great grandchildren. :B

[C_Schomer]

My 10 gal. Atwood was fixed at 140 and it was touchy to set at an unpainful temp so I used the control in the previous picture and wired it in serious with the oem temp control and set it at 120. Now the oem 140 control is the hi limit. Our shower head shutoff valve works fine and both of us can easily take the showers we like, one right after the other.
Then the 14 yo element bit it, so I used a folded-over style 240vac 4500w element. Now it is SUPER low watt density and pulls <10 amps and it still heats plenty fast. Craig

[Dutch_12078]

jjrbus wrote:

Cummins12V98 wrote:

jjrbus wrote:
I bought one of those Oxygencis rv shower heads that everyone is just madly in love with, greatest thing since sliced bread according to the forum.

It bypasses so much water I shower with it in the off position!

You need to add an inline shutoff. Works great!

Adding an inline shutoff defeats the purpose of spending the big bucks for an RV specific shower head.

Our Camco shower head has a positive shut off...

Camco 43712 RV Shower Head with On/Off Switch

[jjrbus]

Cummins12V98 wrote:

jjrbus wrote:
I bought one of those Oxygencis rv shower heads that everyone is just madly in love with, greatest thing since sliced bread according to the forum.

It bypasses so much water I shower with it in the off position!

You need to add an inline shutoff. Works great!

Adding an inline shutoff defeats the purpose of spending the big bucks for an RV specific shower head.

[Cummins12V98]

jjrbus wrote:
I bought one of those Oxygencis rv shower heads that everyone is just madly in love with, greatest thing since sliced bread according to the forum.

It bypasses so much water I shower with it in the off position!

You need to add an inline shutoff. Works great!

[prichardson]

There are mixing valves available. They are plumbed in between the hot and cold water line and the output is tempered. Most have adjustable output temperature.

[valhalla360]

Fulltimer50 wrote:
In the normal water heater configuration, the hot water from the heater is mixed with cold water from somewhere else. If all of the water comes from the heater, you are going to run out of warm water faster than if you mixed it.

This is the real problem with lowering the hot water heater temp.

Mix 130f water with 60F cold water, to get 100F water at the shower head. With a 6gal water tank, you can probably keep that up for around 8-10gal before so much cold water has been mixed into the hot water tank, that the hot water tank is putting out water below 100F.

If you start with 100F hot water tank, as soon as you start pulling water, the hot water tank starts dropping below 100F quickly getting progressively colder since it's pulling 60F water from the fresh tank to replace the "hot" water used. If there is only 1 of you and you do a 2gal navy shower, that may be acceptable as it will probably only be down in the upper-80's by the time you are done.

If you have room, you could install a separate 5gal tank (or pick the size you think is suitable for showering) with it's own fresh water pump. Fill the reservoir, with a mix of hot and cold water of the desired amount and temperature. Then using the secondary pump plumbed to the shower, you can take a shower off the reservoir tank with a constant temp...at least until it runs out.

Seems like more hassle than it's worth but it should work.

[JimK-NY]

steveh27 wrote:
I leave the water heater off, only turning it on 18-20 minutes before taking a shower. That gets the hot water to a temp I can use without cold water. It may take a few tries to figure out how long to leave it on. Saves a lot of water.

I have been doing the same thing for 10 plus years since I first started to RV. I have a battery operated kitchen timer that I use. As mentioned the time for shower hot water is about 20 minutes, plus or minus 5 depending on the temperature of water in the tank. I can fine tune the temperature by checking at my kitchen faucet. I waste very little water because the tank is close to that faucet. I then shower with hot water. There is a little waste because of the distance between the HW tank and shower. Even so I only need about 1 gallon for a Navy type shower. My wife is about the same unless she washes her hair which can mean another half gallon for a thorough rinse. We never use hot water for dish washing. Instead we use a dishpan with hot water heated for a few minutes in a tea kettle.

[jjrbus]

I do the guessing game also, with how long on. Does not work when both the wife and I shower. I let her shower first and after a few minutes turn the heater off. Works sorta ok maybe but still wastes lots of water.

[steveh27]

I leave the water heater off, only turning it on 18-20 minutes before taking a shower. That gets the hot water to a temp I can use without cold water. It may take a few tries to figure out how long to leave it on. Saves a lot of water.

[jjrbus]

I bought one of those Oxygencis rv shower heads that everyone is just madly in love with, greatest thing since sliced bread according to the forum.

It bypasses so much water I shower with it in the off position!