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"  It happens like clockwork. The weather cools and people come to PM with heating questions. One of the things they ask a lot is why they never seem to have enough hot water to shower. While it&amp;#039;s slightly annoying to shower in less than optimal water temperature in summer, the sensation is downright unpleasant in winter. And with the approach of the holidays, you&amp;#039;re more likely to wash extra (and large) dishes in the kitchen sink, where hot water is the key to spotless pots and pans. So this year, we&amp;#039;ll try and answer some of these questions before they start, well, pouring in. If you&amp;#039;re home always seems to run out of hot water quickly, your first approach should be to take a few energy-conserving steps. Flush the water heater. With gas-fired heaters, that removes sediment that&amp;#039;s interfering with heat transfer from the flame to the water above. While it doesn&amp;#039;t improve electric water heater performance as much as it does with gas, it doesn&amp;#039;t hurt to flush an electric appliance.  Next, insulate pipes carrying the heated water to fixtures. That&amp;#039;s especially important if the pipes travel through unheated crawl spaces, the garage or along the wall of the foundation. Although you can simply cut strips of fiberglass insulation and wind them carefully around the pipe and tape them in place, it&amp;#039;s far easier and more efficient to buy self-stick pipe insulation sold in 3-ft lengths and bagged or boxed. This stuff is so easy to install, you just open it along the slit and snap it over the pipe, then peel the tape that covers its adhesive edge. Press the two halves of the insulation together and you&amp;#039;re done. Finally, insulate the hot-water tank itself, but be sure not to install insulation within 6 in. of its vent if it&amp;#039;s gas fired or cover its thermostat (whether it&amp;#039;s gas or electric).Again, while nothing prevents you from simply using fiberglass insulation, it makes far more sense to spend a little extra money and buy a bagged water heater insulation kit. Before calling a plumber, see whether these simple steps improve the problem. If they help only slightly, it may be time to upgrade how you produce hot water. That may include taking any one of several types of action, such as installing an electric or gas instantaneous or tankless water heater near fixtures that see the highest demand. These appliances literally heat water as it&amp;#039;s used (they don&amp;#039;t store hot water) and they work best to supplement an electric water heater. While instantaneous heaters work well, they are a mechanically complex solution because their installation requires additional plumbing and fuel connections and a dedicated electrical circuit.   For people that already have a gas-fired water heater, it makes more sense to go with a larger water heater since the gas, plumbing and vent connections for the existing heater are already in place. Look for an appliance with a large tank (50 gal.) that&amp;#039;s insulated with as high an R value as possible (somewhere in the neighborhood of R-25). Also, the heater&amp;#039;s recovery rate should be as high as possible. This is the rate at which the water heater can raise the temperature of the inlet water by 90 1/4 F. It&amp;#039;s expressed in gallons per hour. Typical 50-gal. water heaters will have recovery rates in the range of 40 gph, but there are heavy-duty models that go as high as 50 to 60 gph. There are also a few companies, such as Bock Water Heaters, with residential products that have powerful burners which enable very high recovery rates (142 to 159 gph). That&amp;#039;s typically what you would expect from a commercial water heater. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/interior-projects/how-to/a3808/4294547/>