You can get a mixing valve that's installed at the heater. Very easy, then turn the heater up really high, they are only like $15-20 and will effectively double or triple your hot water capacity.
Re:Tesla Virtual Power Plant
by mschuster91 on Thursday August 18, 2022 @02:34AM
(#32506068)
Do not install these if you have hard water, they will clog up extremely fast - and the hotter your hot water is, the faster it will clog up.
Which is especially amusing considering this is PG&E territory. The bay area water was so hard you could make limestone castles by rinsing a glass.
Interesting, I didn't know those existed. Seems like it makes a lot of sense.
It also seems like if you simply leave it on a higher temperature 24/7 it will use more power due to thermal losses overall. This is a great hack for households with several people who like to take long showers (and thus run out of hot water), though, or if you can do some sort of variable temperature setpoint to store energy as described in the thread, though I think at least in the US electric tank-based hot water heaters are relatively uncommon.
There are new 120v heat pump hot water heaters that operate in this way:
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/11/29/120-volt-heat-pump-wate...
"120 volt heat pump water heaters come with a mixing valve integrated into the water heater itself. This mixing valve allows owners to keep their water at a higher temperature and as the water leaves the tank, the valve will mix “in the exact amount of cold water needed to ensure the water comes out of the water heater at the correct temperature.”
Wouldn't that be quite dangerous? That's basically instant scalding temperature if anyone accidentally turns on just the hot.