Runs with Bison
Member
In other words, Rheem doesn't really stand behind their product. They make exaggerated advertising claims. The likely problem is that small tanks are going to have too much mixing with incoming water and therefore cool off perhaps twice as rapidly as a 50 gallon tank. Who cares how fast they can recover if they get cold before the shower is over?
I'll stick with 50 gallon tanks. Reducing tank size doesn't accomplish much efficiency wise anyway, because much of the loss is in the uninsulated combustion chamber, flue wall, and nozzle projections. So if one is going to have a tank at all, it might as well be a 50 gallon or take the leap to tankless.
We sometimes have all three showers running (1.5-1.6 gpm shower heads) and never come anywhere close to running out of hot water. The only time we've come up short is during whirlpool tub fills with 125 F set point on the water heater in cold weather. And even that recovered in 15 minutes. Raising set point a few degrees has eliminated that issue as well.
I'll stick with 50 gallon tanks. Reducing tank size doesn't accomplish much efficiency wise anyway, because much of the loss is in the uninsulated combustion chamber, flue wall, and nozzle projections. So if one is going to have a tank at all, it might as well be a 50 gallon or take the leap to tankless.
We sometimes have all three showers running (1.5-1.6 gpm shower heads) and never come anywhere close to running out of hot water. The only time we've come up short is during whirlpool tub fills with 125 F set point on the water heater in cold weather. And even that recovered in 15 minutes. Raising set point a few degrees has eliminated that issue as well.