Up at camp I had my water heater replaced a couple years back. It was the original, leaking, rusted, etc..The local plumber put in a brand new one. It is small, 15-20 gallon I believe, as that is all that will fit in the space that it is in. We have just learned to stagger our showers, dish washing, etc and have not had a problem with having a hot shower doing that.
Every time I go up there, I turn water off at the meter,and turn breaker to water heater off before I come home.
This weekend it was just my son and I. Friday night I took a shower, and my son went after me by a few minutes. He had no hot water at all. Saturday night I let him go first, then I took one 30 minutes later and I had no hot water...
I let it recover about an hour and went to wash dishes...i got about 3 minutes of hot water.
SO does it seem like it may be the element going bad? Is there a way to test it?
It does sound like the element is bad - is the water hard up there? Sometimes that will make the elements go before their time? Not a hard or expensive fix if that is indeed the issue.
Replace element and t-stat just to be safe.
Sounds like the element. If you ever replace another get a instant hot. Shower for hours and never run out. It takes 1-2min or two to get hot but after that its stops only when the water gets turned off.
