How to Choose the Right Size Hot Water Tank
Before you purchase a water heater for your home, you need to know what size tank is needed to accommodate your family during peak usage. Although you may use the water heater throughout the day, the water heater usage during the peak hour during the day is how you determine the size of the tank you need. The peak hour is the time when the household demands hot water the most. The water usage is measured in gallons of hot water during peak usage. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Determine the hour during the day when the hot water has its heaviest usage in the home. This includes showers, baths, dish washing, using washing machines, shaving, brushing teeth and washing hands. When more than one of these things is done at the same time in one hour is the peak usage hour.
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Calculate how much water is used in the peak usage hour for bathing. An average shower can use 18 gallons of water and last for 8.2 minutes, according to the Alliance for Water Efficiency; an adult bath can use an average of 23 gallons of water; and a bath for a child averages 11.5 gallons of water.
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Calculate peak usage for washing dishes. For dishwashers older than 10 years, use 12 gallons of water. For newer dishwashers, the average water used is 8 gallons, and hand-washing dishes averages 11 gallons of water.
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Calculate how much water is used for washing machines during peak usage. A top-loader washing machine averages 40 gallons of water for one hot wash and rinse, or 14 gallons for a warm wash and rinse. A front-loader washing machine averages 28 gallons of water for a hot wash and rinse, or 4 gallons of water for a warm wash and rinse.
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Calculate the average water consumption for shaving, which is about 2 gallons of water, and hand washing, which is about 2 gallons of water shared between cold and hot. Hair washing uses approximately 4 gallons of water.
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Use the number of gallons for each task to determine how many gallons of hot water are used during the first peak hour. For example, if you take one shower, put in one load of wash in a top loader using warm wash and rinse while running an older dishwasher, you use 18 gallons for a shower, 14 gallons for laundry, and 12 gallons for washing dishes. The size tank you need would be 44 gallons (18+14+12).
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