LESLIE: Dean in Kansas, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?
DEAN: OK. We’ve just purchased a home and in that home we’ve got a traditional gas water heater.
TOM: OK.
DEAN: And my wife loves to take baths every night. She’s one of those really hot bath-type persons.
TOM: OK. Good for her.
DEAN: Just wanted to kind of know what the best setting for the water heater was. We’ve been told a couple different things. Usually, we turn it all the way up and we’ve been told some different things, so …
TOM: Mm-hmm. Ooh. That’s really hot. Yeah, well, is it just you and your wife or do you have kids, too?
DEAN: We do have kids, as well.
TOM: Yeah, you want to be careful with the children, especially. You don’t want the water to be any hotter than about 110 to 120 degrees. And if you turn it all the way up, it could get close to 160 and that’s really dangerous. So, if you have a 40-gallon water heater and you’re taking a big bath every night, I think you’re going to have adjust your schedules around that because it’s going to use a significant amount of it. But it also has a pretty fast recovery.
If you opt, at some point in the future – if you’re there in the house for a number of years and you want to get a water heater that’s never going to run out of hot water, you should opt for a tankless water heater. They’re a little bit more expensive than a tank water heater but they basically provide you an endless supply of hot water.
So I think those are your options, Dean. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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