Water Heater Size

I'm having a laundry area built out for my 3 fam. I was going to have 1 washer/dryer. I was thinking of 10 gallon electric water heater. Now I'm wondering whether that is the correct size. I haven't finalized on the the washer (make/model). But I do know it's going to be top loaded. So if you could just use the standard size for a top loaded washer for this argument, what do you think the water heater size should be?

"Front-loading washers use 40-75% less water and 30-85% less energy than typical top-loaders (10 to 24 gallons vs. up to 40 gallons, and 120-560 kWh/yr. vsi. 800 kWh/yr.)."
but I don't know how much of the 40 gals. needs to be hot water.

A couple of thoughts. First, 10 gallons is not very much hot water, and I doubt if the cost for it would be that much less than say a 40 gallon tank. Since newer laundry detergents are intended for cold water washing, a large quantity of hot water is not as important as it used to be. I see no advantage in having a separate heater for laundry.

heater

A 10 gallon tank could cost more than a 40 gallon one, and it will be 120 v. with 1,800 watt elements MAXIMUM, more likely 1,200 or 1,500, so the recovery is going to be abysmal. The only salvation would be that very few people even use hot water for washing these days, so it might not even be needed.

hj said:

the recovery is going to be abysmal. The only salvation would be that very few people even use hot water for washing these days, so it might not even be needed.

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10 gals = 83# of water raised 50F will take 4000 BTU, at 1200w will take one hour.