Can you take long shower with 6 gal water heater?

brightsky · 02-07-2021, 10:22 PM

Can you take long shower with 6 gal water heater? Do you need to stop and wait for hot water to recover?

How about another person washing dishes with hot water at the same time?

MontanaRick · 02-07-2021, 10:34 PM

1. No (well, you can, it just won't be hot!) Depends also on the volume of your shower head, how high you turn it on, and whether you run it continuously. Generally, you need to take Navy showers.
2. Even with Navy showers, we let it recover between hers and mine, but only takes about 5 to 10 minutes.
3. Basis for divorce!

**JFlightRisk** · 02-08-2021, 12:24 AM

It depends on your definition of "long", and how hot you like the water. I can wet down, suds up, rinse, and wash my hair (that doesn't take as long as it USED to), and the water is just starting to get a little cooler. Recovery is pretty quick, and is ready for the next one by the time I dry off, and get dressed. Wash dishes at the same time as a shower? Nope! Like MontanaRick said, not a good idea to try at all...ever!

If you want to see how much water you use, the next one you take at home, close the drain and see how much is in the tub when you're done (if you have a tub style shower, that is).

LuckyDuck · 02-08-2021, 01:07 AM

I don’t know your definition of “long,” but each of us can take 5-minute showers pretty much back-to-back with the OEM Jayco shower head. That’s with the water running the whole time (not shutting off to lather up etc).

We always turn on the WH about 20 minutes before we need the hot water. It usually flips off before we start and immediately relights when the water starts flowing. I like hotter water than DW and it’s never turned cool on me yet. Definitely don’t wash dishes, though. Turning the hot on at the kitchen sink means cold in the shower.

Grumpy · 02-08-2021, 06:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brightsky

Can you take long shower with 6 gal water heater? Do you need to stop and wait for hot water to recover?

How about another person washing dishes with hot water at the same time?

If it's gas/elec and you're on shore power use both that increases the capacity to almost the equivalent of 10 gal.

curver900 · 02-08-2021, 08:22 AM

you can check your shower head by using a 5 gal bucket and see how long it takes to fill it up... then you know how long you have to take a "hot" shower...

Camper_bob · 02-08-2021, 08:33 AM

Another factor not mentioned so far is the temperature of the intake water. When it's cold, it's going to take more hot water to make it comfortable, so you'll burn through your hot water faster.

For me, I take Navy showers anyway, no matter what. In summer, I don't use NEARLY as much hot water for a shower. In winter, it takes a bit more hot. DW likes to run the water the whole time, and she hasn't run it cold yet that I know of. Typically we leave the water heater on gas as it uses a lot of power, and we usually want to run both air conditioners. When DW gets in for her shower (ladies first), I'll walk over and flip the electric on for faster recovery. She showers, I give it a few minutes to recover, then I get in. I've run out a couple times, but again, I use Navy shower, so not a big deal.

Once I forgot to turn on the water heater at all, and didn't realize until I was in the shower already. We were camping at my dad's house. DW went inside so she could take as long as she wanted. I decided just for a quick cleanup. That was officially the coldest (and fastest) shower I've ever had!

TCNashville · 02-08-2021, 09:47 AM

Some of it depends also on how close the water heater is to the shower. In my previous unit the 6 gallon water was located up front with the shower mid back. No way we were taking long showers with that set up. My current unit has a 10 gallon water heater and no issues with taking showers for as long as you want. Its' amazing what 4 extra gallons of hot water will do.

CAG · 02-08-2021, 09:48 AM

As Grumpy said. I run both gas and electric during showers. My shower is not the test. The test is my wife's with hair shampoo. She has never complained about it getting cold.

Camper_bob · 02-08-2021, 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CAG

As Grumpy said. I run both gas and electric during showers. My shower is not the test. The test is my wife's with hair shampoo. She has never complained about it getting cold.

+1

DW washing her hair will push ANY hot water system to its max!!

But so long as she's not washing her hair or trying to get warm, BOTH of us can shower with less than 5 gallons of water total (and yes, I've measured it). Our limiting factor in those situations is waste tank capacity. I'll ask her to take Navy shower if we don't have sewer hookups. If she MUST wash her hair on those trips, she's been known to do it at the outside shower, or the "park facilities" if they're nice.

In over 6 years of RVing, I can count on one hand the number of times I've really run out of hot water. And I think all of those times involved DW and DS showering before me, and me being left with the short end.

brightsky · 02-08-2021, 12:05 PM

Precept 31UL: 6 gal or 10 gal? not in spec.

Alante: 6 gal?

bansai · 02-08-2021, 12:32 PM

Not 100% sure what a navy shower is, but I imagine it's basically a 'sponge bath' where the water is off more than it is on during the process? Water on, soap, water off, then rince and get out.

My wife and I manage ok with the hot water tank, but there are no long showers. If someone wants a 'long shower' we have to find a real one. We spent so many decades backpacking and remote tent camping, we still feel pretty spoiled even with the short showers. Unless we have full hookups, we aren't very likely to even use it on most trips. More often than not, we don't have full hookups and retaining as much water as possible is a bigger concern than steaming up the bathroom.

TCNashville · 02-08-2021, 01:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brightsky

Precept 31UL: 6 gal or 10 gal? not in spec.

Alante: 6 gal?

It appears that the Precept has a 10 and the Alante has a 6 but I only checked 1 model each.
https://www.rvusa.com/rv-guide/2021-...n-31ul-tr48498
https://www.rvguide.com/specs/jayco/...lante/29s.html

craigav · 02-08-2021, 02:42 PM

As Camper_Bob mentioned, the answer to how long is closely related to the water inlet temperature. In some Texas Campgrounds in the summer, you can run your shower as long as you like w/o running out of hot water. However in the Rocky mountains with very cold inlet water, you may run out of hot water in 5~8 minutes. All the tips above help, to add to the navy shower concept, when in very cold areas with a cold water inlet temp, I try to keep a very low shower water volume and I use a shower head that helps with that (oxygenics). ~CA

madmaxmutt · 02-08-2021, 05:52 PM

The average RV showerhead is between 1.5 - 2.5 GPM, so nope.

RogerR · 02-08-2021, 07:12 PM

I had a gas only 6 gallon and added the 400 watt electric element. Now I rarely need to light the gas (noisy). I have my wife plug the drain in the tub. I then soap up with her used water and rinse only with fresh water. Makes our tiny tank and grey tanks last longer!.

X2 on the need for water form my hair (singular, LOL)

JDug66 · 02-08-2021, 07:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brightsky

Can you take long shower with 6 gal water heater? Do you need to stop and wait for hot water to recover?

How about another person washing dishes with hot water at the same time?

Certainly can take a long, hot shower. Seems our shower is big enough to also accommodate me and the DW at the same time. This saves on hot water too!

Lake Huron · 02-08-2021, 07:58 PM

One of our previous trailers had a 6gal. Connected to shore power I ran both gas and electric at the same time and that made a big difference. Like previously posted the temp of the incoming water makes a difference also. Don't turn water on all the way, but you dont need it down to a trickle either. Navy showers will get you a longer and hotter shower too.
All of my trailers I've found if someone turns on the hot water while someone is in the shower, it'll give you a real cold blast real quick! Lol!

madmaxmutt · 02-08-2021, 08:04 PM

Frankly, this is the reason we have a Girard on-demand water heater. On the rare occasion that we have full hookups, showers are as long as you want.

Camper_bob · 02-09-2021, 10:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by madmaxmutt

The average RV showerhead is between 1.5 - 2.5 GPM, so nope.

If you're running 100% HOT water out of your 2.5GPM shower head, sure. But then you'll also come away a scald victim.

And if you're running a 2.5GPM shower head, you need to replace that bad boy. That's A LOT of water. Even 1.5GPM is a lot of flow for an RV shower head.

Remember, you're not using 100% hot water from the water heater when running the shower. You're MIXING it with "cold" tap/tank water.

That's why I mentioned how much hot water you will go through depends largely on the temperature of the tap/tank water it's being mixed with. If it's cold, you have to mix in more HOT water to make it comfortable. If it's "warm", you don't need hardly any hot water to make it comfortable.

In my case, sometimes it's VERY little hot water. In TX in the summer, the tap water itself can sometimes be warm enough for a good shower. Especially since when it's that hot, I don't want a real hot shower anyway. I've been known to use NO hot water for a shower.

And if I've been on the road all day, driving over the hot asphalt, the water in my holding tank can get pretty dang warm. CERTAINLY warm enough for a refreshing shower after a long, hot day on the road.

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