I am typically the first one in my house to take a shower and I like hot showers. I have noticed that if I take a shower first, the hot water is not that hot and doesn’t last very long. But if others take showers before me and the hot water has to recharge then the hot water is HOT and lasts a long time.
I have a 50 gallon hot water tank.
The only two things I have (besides sinks and showers) that use hot water are a dumb dishwasher and a dumb washing machine.
What I was thinking was to set up an automation in HA to somehow trigger something to use hot water for like 10 minutes in order to get the hot water heater to recharge.
Any ideas?
This should be higher. No wasted water, low tech, and no cost. If the water heater has trouble retaining heat in the water then it definitely seems like an issue with the water heater itself, but this approach will reliably trigger a larger batch of fully reheated water at just the right time. Plus, if the water heater is electric then you’re even use electricity at non peak hours.