What temperature do you set your hot water to?

[JackOfDiamonds]

My wife likes super hot water, never likes to run out, and insists I keep the water heater turned up to the maximum. Any time I turned the water down, she complained the dishwasher doesn't work as well or that we run out of water too fast. I don't mind having scalding-hot water available at the garage utility sink either.

The problem is I don't think water that hot is safe for kids in the bathrooms. I don't have any really small kids, but there's also guests to consider. At the bathroom sink I measure about 165F which is why I want to turn down the temperature. I've heard that the maximum safe temperature is 120F, and I doubt anyone really wants anything hotter than that for a shower or a sink for handwashing.

My Moen shower valves have an adjustment so I can have 165F hot water. but adjust the shower valve so they only go up to 120F. But I haven't found a way to do that for bathroom sinks. Is there a way to adjust the pluming with valves so you can force a certain amount of mixing at bathroom sinks? I thought if you plumbed in a bypass with a ball valve in it, it would force at least some cold water to come out even if you only turned on the hot tap, and only cost 1 ball valve, but I might be having a gross conceptual failure about whether that would work or not.

 

[larry4406]

Our water heater is set to 140F.

I think 165F is too hot.

 

[paulsomlo]

165 deg? You can almost make tea with that! I keep my tankless set at 125 deg, and I've taken a candy thermometer into the shower with me; the hottest I can stand is 105 deg.

 

[WildBill]

I set mine to the max which is around 150F so it doesn't run out as fast in the shower. It is unsafe in the sinks but its just me and my wife so we are not too worried about it. I did turn it down to 120ish when I had a bunch of people over for though. In the winter the water coming into my house is just above freezing so even with an almost new 50 gallon water heater it goes fast, or at least fast by my wife's opinion.

 

[WildBill]

165 deg? You can almost make tea with that! I keep my tankless set at 125 deg, and I've taken a candy thermometer into the shower with me; the hottest I can stand is 105 deg.

And I thought I was weird

 

[WildBill]

https://www.amazon.com/Atmama-Three-way-Thermostatic-Mixing-connections/dp/B082M73L38?tag=atomicindus08-20

 

[Tchicken]

Yikes, mine is set to what amounts to 108 to 110°F at the taps, there's some adjustments for the seasons .. seems I read somewhere or another that 120 F° is the ideal temperature but that's too high for me

 

[jhelrey]

140 degrees in the summer and 165 degrees in the winter.

 

[Chefjpd]

I keep my tankless at 115. This way I can make bread or dough without having to use a thermometer.

 

[CJM8515]

140, anything more and its to hot. and honestly i have my shower set to the middle and for me thats plenty. the gf wants SCALDING water.. i dont get why women like it but Ive had others tell me the same thing.

 

[marak]

One should also consider bacterial growth when determining a minimum temperature for a water heater.

This website provides good information: Hot Water Safety

 

[Junkdrawer Dog]

140°F, which is the minimum requirement to avoid Legionella virus.

 

[WisJim]

I think that the International Plumbing code limits the maximum water temperature to 140 F, and if I recall (it's been years since I worked with it), public bathrooms are limited to 120 F for the maximum hot water temp. The concern is possible skin and other damage for children or people with less temperature awareness. I suppose you can do what you want in your personal property, but be careful if the public can use the hot water.

 

[Jeepster04]

Somewhere around 140F, and Im not going higher. If you run out of hot water, you need a bigger water heater.

I have a 50 gallon gas water heater and have never ran out with a 5 GPM shower head. Not sure what the longest shower I've taken is; maybe 20min?

 

[JackOfDiamonds]

According to my research a good quality thermostatic valve is about $120 each, and without ripping out the walls, I would need one per fixture, for 3 or 4 fixtures.

You can get non-thermostatic mixing valves for about $60.

I could make a primitive mixing valve with 1 valve and 2 check valves, but I can't find a cheap source of check valves so that would end up being like $40/fixture anyway.

 

[AJHD]

Ours is set to 120*F (at the tank), but it also averages over 100*F outside, so even the "cold" water is warm.

Ground water/water supply is naturally heated before it even reaches the house.

 

[Codyboy]

Tankless set to 125 in the summer and 130 in the winter.
I used to do 120 and 125 but the unit is going on 20 years old and doesn't seem to heat as well as it did when new.

 

[The Cobbler]

According to my research a good quality thermostatic valve is about $120 each, and without ripping out the walls, I would need one per fixture, for 3 or 4 fixtures.

they are normally installed at the water heater , not at each fixture.

 

[CMB41]

Sorry to come off like a hall monitor, but if you have kids in the house, maximum recommended setting is 120-125 F
I have seen many, many injuries over the last 20+ years. They can be really bad.
Here’s a chart

 

[strength_and_power]

165 deg? You can almost make tea with that! I keep my tankless set at 125 deg, and I've taken a candy thermometer into the shower with me; the hottest I can stand is 105 deg.

You can Sous Vide a steak to a perfect medium rare with 134* water. 165* is medium well territory. It’d be interesting if the actual theory would hold true.

 

[ATC]

Ours is set at 120°F, and that's too damn hot for me washing my hands. I usually put the faucet handle in the middle. Start out cold, then gets luke-warm for the rinse.
Judging by the temperatures of a hot tub set to 103-104° (too damn hot also), my showers are somewhere around 95° if I had to guess. Doesn't steam up the bathroom anyways...no fog on the mirror.

 

[gizardlizard]

I run my water heater at 140. Hate running out of hot water as well. Every house I’ve owned, I tore the water heater out and installed a 75 gallon Bradford White as a minimum. Personally not a fan of on demand water heaters.

 

[jmiller_2308]

Check your codes and I'm sure that you will find that you are not allowed to have more than 120 at the tap. As mentioned above, add a temperature controlled valve at the hot water heater instead of on each fixture. Make sure to get one that monitors the temperature rather than just a simple mixing valve.

I keep my tank at 150 but use a mixing valve to drop the water to the tap to 120. I also have a re-circulation system so that water going to the far end of the house is at the tap immediately.

I have a big rambler and a 100 gallon spa in the master bath. With a large gas water heater we could never manage to get enough hot water to fill the tub until I finally replaced the conventional 60 gallon gas hot water heater with an indirect water heater that heats water from the house boiler. The indirect is a super insulated 30 gallon tank with an internal coil that has plenty of capacity for most uses but because of the boiler capacity and size of the tank the system can also deliver virtually unlimited water through its recovery heating. I was concerned about tank size and went with the 30 gallon instead of a 20 gallon and after seeing how efficient this was I really could have gone with 20 gallons. The smaller the tank the less heat loss when not in use and because of the fast recovery there really was no need to keep an extra 10 gallons hot.

 

[johninct]

I set mine to where if you touch hot, you won't get burned or hurt. I can take a shower with hot valve all of the way on with very little cold mixed in. I use to care for my mother who had dementia and I didn't want her getting hurt.

 

[Rusted Nut]

International Plumbing Code is 120 deg F, @ the fixture. 165 will probably fry your dishwasher.

 

[Mike65]

We have our tankless water heater & we have it set to 125°.

 

[Sumboodie]

Mine is set to 125 i think. 165 would be crazy hot for spigot water in a house, especially with kids or old people.

I could go lower even, but the cold is around 38* so stuff like the washer that blends wouldn't have much warm water.

 

[micromind]

I like around 130.

It seems to be an all-around good temperature for just about everything.

Most D/Ws have a heating element in the bottom and will heat even cold water to a useable temperature. It's possible that yours has failed or is simply not activated.

 

[JSutter]

 

[Brent T]

Ours will be off the rest of the summer. It's hot here in Phoenix and our water lines run through the attic.

 

[dcg9381]

We're tankless. I set them at 120 degrees. Amount of energy used very much depends on ambient temp or the incoming water.

In RVs and my converted cargo trailer, I set the tanked water heaters to 140 or so as the tank sizes are limited to 3-5 gallons typically.

Up north we've got a heat pump water heater, but ambient water temp is very cold < 50 degrees... So how long a shower you can get out of water heater size really depends on that ambient temperature of the water you mix it with.

 

[Fav Onefour]

Check the temp vs the setting. I bet some of you would be surprised.
I have five electric water heaters installed at the same time. They are matching units and have those little dial settings. The temps vary quite a bit with the same settings.

 

[NUTTSGT]

I'm pretty sure wherever the "normal" setting is, that is where ours is set.

 

[jkeyser14]

Our state is stupid and outlawed tanked electric water heaters bigger than 50 gallons regardless of household size for supposed efficiency reasons. As a result we have it cranked all the way up to support a family of 4.

Not joking. Try to find a 80G electric resistance tank in Maryland.

 

[Tchicken]

Has anyone here ever contracted Legionnaires Disease? Had it traced to their water heater's temperature?

 

[jhelrey]

Has anyone here ever contracted Legionnaires Disease? Had it traced to their water heater's temperature?

Typically, that is a cooling tower issue.

 

[Tchicken]

I'm not sure this house has a cooling tower, so why would the 120 °F recommendation cite Legionnaires?

 

[JackOfDiamonds]

Ok I decided to buy a Watts thermostatic valve and install it at the water tank, and dismiss any WAF issues as unavoidable for safety and legality. It's an excuse to finally buy PEX crimper tools.

By the way, is it normal to have galvanized steel pipe in potable water service? That's that my water heater is connected with, 3/4 galvanized pipe.

 

[Hobby_Man22]

140°F, which is the minimum requirement to avoid Legionella virus.

Why do they call for 120 as the max then? Is that only for showers?

 

[Hobby_Man22]

165 deg? You can almost make tea with that! I keep my tankless set at 125 deg, and I've taken a candy thermometer into the shower with me; the hottest I can stand is 105 deg.

Who makes tea? lol