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A 50-gallon water heater, like this guy right here, produces about 65 gallons of water for you to shower with. Now, if you use a device like this little guy right here that costs about 107 bucks and takes an hour and a half to install,
Learn how a thermostatic mixing valve can increase your hot water output by up to 31% with a simple 90-minute upgrade.
Key Takeaways
- A thermostatic mixing valve can significantly increase usable hot water without changing the water heater.
- Maintaining safe water temperature output is crucial to avoid scalding injuries.
- Proper product selection based on size, certification, and safety features is essential.
- Measuring actual water temperature helps optimize valve effectiveness and safety.
- Installation is straightforward and can be done in about 90 minutes.
What the video covers
- A 50-gallon water heater typically produces about 65 gallons of shower-temperature water.
- Installing a thermostatic mixing valve costing around $107 can increase usable hot water by 31% or more.
- Warmer incoming water temperatures can boost this increase to over 40%.
- The valve mixes hot water with cold to maintain safe 120°F output, preventing scalding risks from higher tank temperatures.
- Important features when buying include correct pipe size (usually 3/4 inch), ASSE 1017 certification, and integral check valves.
- Water heater temperature settings often differ from actual water temperature, so measuring with a thermometer is recommended.
- The video includes a step-by-step installation guide with tips on shutoff valves and plumbing setup.
- Annual cost and energy efficiency implications of raising water heater temperature are discussed.
- A poll shows many users do not know or do not check their water heater temperature.
- The video is sponsored by Factor, a meal delivery service, with a promotional discount code.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Hot Water Output Increase
- 00:58Measuring Your Hot Water Temperature
- 02:06How Temperature Affects Usable Hot Water
- 03:09Thermostatic Mixing Valve Overview
- 04:07Choosing the Right Valve
- 05:00Sponsor Message: Factor Meal Service
- 06:02Water Temperature Poll and Experiment
- 07:02Installation Setup and Preparation
- 07:48Installation Steps and Tips
- 09:13Final Checks and Maintenance Advice
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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all of a sudden you're going to get an additional 31% more water out of that same water heater. Now, what's more, if you live in a warmer climate, you can actually see rates of over 40% increase from that same water heater just by
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using this guy right here. Let's talk about what this is, how it works, and how easy it is to install, but we'll also talk about some things that nobody else covers on YouTube, like how much does this actually cost all year to run.
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Now, before we get going, I want you to run a quick test. Go find the sink that is closest to your water heater and then turn the hot water on for about 90 seconds. And after that's done, I want
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you to grab a cup and then a thermometer. Just a basic meat thermometer from your drawer is going to work just fine for this. Put the meat thermometer in and get that reading.
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Now, this is going to matter a lot for determining exactly how effective this little guy can be for you as we progress in the video. And then if you would, leave a comment down below sharing exactly what that temperature was. When
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you buy a new water heater or have one installed, almost every time it's going to be set to the manufacturer's default, which is 120°.
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Now, I mentioned at the beginning of the video that a 50-gallon water heater will produce 65 gallons of shower temperature water. I've got some cups here to explain exactly how that works. So, this over here represents the 120° water.
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This is 50 gallons, this represents 50 gallons of it, and as we add that into our extra cup over here, we've got 120°, 50 gallons. We need 15 gallons of the 55° water to offset that and make it
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shower temperature. So, when we add those together, we now have 65 gallons of shower temperature water. That's the green. Now, if you turn the temperature up to 140°, then that same 50 gallons of 140° temperature water gets added in over here and then we add
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another 35 gallons of the 55° temperature water in order to offset that 140°. So, as you can see when we add this here takes up most of the cup, but now instead of 65 gallons we have 85 gallons of usable shower
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water. So, the hotter the water the better, right? Kind of. There's one dangerous caveat here and that is that all of the water in the rest of your house will be at such a high temperature that you're at risk of scalding anybody
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who touches it. When you and I are exposed to hot water that's 140°, it takes just 5 seconds for us to get third-degree burns. That is pretty serious stuff and a total danger in the house. That is, of course, where the
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thermostatic mixing valve comes in. That's what this guy is called. So, it goes right in between your hot water supply that comes out of your water heater and it mixes it with the cold water, but what's going to come out to
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the rest of your house is 120° water, which is exactly where it's recommended that it be. Just a quick heads-up, you're going to see this under a few different names when you look online.
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Thermostatic mixing valve is the proper name, but it's also called a tempering valve or a tank booster depending on where you look. One more thing you need to understand about this little guy is how effective it is is really dependent
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on the temperature of the water coming into your house. When your cold water is already warm, you need less of it to get to shower temperature, which means that every extra degree in your tank goes a bit further. So, if you're up in
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Minnesota in February with 40° water coming in, you're looking at maybe 25% more output. Now, down in Phoenix in August, you can easily get over 40% more usable hot water. Cue buckets 18 and 19 from earlier. Now, when it comes to
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buying one of these, don't just go by the first thing you see online. I went and looked and you're going to see a bunch of these starting at about 25 bucks and going up from there. That's the thing is that there are three
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ingredients that you need to check before you buy one of these because those $25 ones, they're almost definitely not what you want to put near your water heater. One, the size. For most homes, it's going to be a 3/4 inch
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pipe that's going into these. So, this is a 3/4 inch guy here. If you happen to have half inch tubes or 1 inch tubes, make sure you match that to your thermostatic mixing valve. Second, you want to look for something that's called
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an ASSE 1017 rating. Now, this is a rating that certifies that these things have the proper output to handle your whole house. You're going to see ones that are rated ASSE 1070 70 and those are not meant for your whole house.
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Those are meant for a single fixture like a shower or a sink or one thing.
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And the last thing that we need to look for are what are called integral check valves. Basically, this is a safety system that's built in to make sure we're balancing out the amount of hot water and cold water at the right ratio.
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We want to thank our sponsor for today's video, Factor. Now, if you haven't used Factor before, we've been using them on and off for years and really simple stuff. Basically, they ship some never frozen meals over to you and you can
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pick what type of food you're interested. I'm all about getting my protein in right now. I love this because it's convenient and it's fast.
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So, literally, I grab it out of the fridge, take it out of the box, stab a couple holes in a few places, and pop it in the microwave for 2 minutes and I'm done. So, this makes it so easy cuz I'm too lazy most of the
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time to actually sit down and prepare a legit meal and especially to get the proteins in that I need, but I want to eat real food. This is real food. It's fresh, has all of the different food groups that I want to have in my meals,
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makes it super easy. So, head to factor75.com or use the link in the description below and if you use the code learntodiyfb50, that's going to get you 50% off your first box and it'll also allow you to get free breakfast for a full year.
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Pretty good deal. So, again, that's learntodiyfb50 as the code at factor75.com. New subscribers only, varies by plan, one free breakfast item per box for 1 year while subscription is active. All right, now let's talk about that number that we had you measure with the
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thermometer for your hot water. I actually ran a poll before I put this video out. We got hundreds of responses and here's what we found. About a third of you said you keep your temperature at 120 or below, which again is the
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manufacturer's default. Now, another 27% said somewhere between 121 and 135, and about 10% said 136 or higher. Now, 29% of you said, "I have no idea." And that's pretty reasonable. A lot of people just aren't checking this. Let me
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tell you exactly why I have you taking those thermometer readings though. I did a little experiment at my house just recently. I actually cranked the water heater up to what the dial says is 135° on my Rheem water heater. I gave that
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about 2 days to make sure that whatever it said there is what it was actually doing in the tank. I took the temperature reading and check this out.
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146°. This thing is running 11° hotter at least than what it says. Seeing that my water heater was running so much hotter than what it reports on the dial, I decided to turn it down below what it claims is 120°
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and then take another temperature test that way. All right, let's get this bad boy installed. Now, take a look at my setup for my installation. You're going to notice one thing that's probably different than your installation, at least one. Now, the big one is I've got
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a shutoff valve, of course, on my cold water, which you probably do too. That's actually code that we have to have that.
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But, I also have one on my hot water coming out. And very few people have that. I actually took the time to put this in a few years ag
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a great time to do it. It's really easy and it just cost me about 12 or 15 bucks to add that guy in. So, I would highly recommend that you put in one of these shutoff valves on your hot water line as
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well. The other thing that I love to do in situations like this is to draw everything up first. Don't try to remember, don't feel like you have to go look a bunch of stuff up mid-install.
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Just draw it out. I use my iPad to draw this set up here. So, this is how it is today. This is how I want it to end up after the install. One more thing I strongly suggest in addition to the
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diagram before you get started is to measure that water. If you haven't already done that, do that before you do the install. We want to see if you're actually sitting at 130° instead of 120, for example, because that will help us
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to get a level of accuracy on that dial so that we can set it to 140 before we do the install. The first thing we have to do here is turn the gas to off. So, you can do that right on the dial, and
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if you want to be extra safe, you can turn the actual gas valve off as well.
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And remember, anything in line with the pipe is on or open, and then anything perpendicular to the pipe is closed.
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Now, give it about 20 minutes to cool all the way down, and then we're going to close off the cold water going into the tank right up here. If by chance you do have a hot water valve like I do,
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make sure to leave that one open. Then, after you've given it 20 minutes, we're going to head upstairs. We're going to open a hot water faucet on the floor above your water heater, and just leave it running. The reason we need to do
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this is because your hot water heater right now is kind of like a sealed can, and you can hook a hose up to that drain at the bottom, open it all the way, and almost nothing will come out because
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there's no air getting in to replace the water. So, opening that faucet upstairs is what lets the air in. Now, you may have seen people crack open this guy right here. This is called the temperature and pressure relief valve,
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and it can do the same job. A lot of plumbers actually do it that way. But, the risk is that those valves sometimes don't seat properly after they're pulled out. They're kind of finicky. And then you've got a whole different problem on
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your hands to deal with. So, the faucet upstairs gets you the same result without any of the risk. All right, at this point, we're going to drain about 3 gallons of water using the drain outlet at the bottom of the tank. Now, if you
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have one handy, I always recommend a hose for this so that you don't risk getting hot water everywhere. Now, that drops the water level in the tank about 3 in, which is plenty to get me below the pipes that I'm about to cut into.
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With that water drained and our cold water supply shut off, we are finally ready to cut into some pipes. Now, on the cold side, I'm going to cut in below my shutoff valve and that's where I'm going to add a tee. Now, just a heads-up
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on my particular install, I'm going to do things a little bit differently. I don't like the fact that I have very little room underneath my shutoff valve.
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I only have about 2 in. I want to have at least three or four to work with. So, I'm actually going to buy a new shutoff valve and place it higher on the setup so that I don't have to worry about
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that. So, like I said, we're going to install a tee below the shutoff valve and one leg of that tee keeps on heading down to the water heater just like it always has. The other leg, the new one,
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is going to feed our mixing valve. When you do cut the pipes, it's important that you have a bucket and a washcloth on hand. And one trick I like to use is to get a larger pipe if you've got one
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kicking around and you can use that to funnel any draining water into the bucket on the ground. It's almost impossible to get no water leakage, so a bit of forethought goes a long way in this case. Now, on the hot side, I'm
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going to cut it up above the shutoff valve so that we don't have any water coming up away from the water heater itself and the new mixing valve goes right in line. Now, hot water from the tank goes in one port. Cold water from
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that tee goes in the other and the blended water comes out the third and that heads off to the house's hot water line. Now, you can see here the hot, the cold, and the output are all marked on
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here. That's great if it goes in in this orientation, but in my case, I actually need it to go like this, which means I'm going to want to transfer the hot, the cold, and the output onto this side as well. So, save
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yourself the trouble. Just use a Sharpie and mark that on there now. Okay, so two tips on these push-fit connections. And if you do both of these, you're going to get a great seal every time. Number one, you want to deburr every single cut
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inside and out. When you make your cut, it leaves a burr, even if you can't see it. And a burr sitting underneath that O-ring is pretty much a leak waiting to happen. Second, mark your insertion depth. There is a gauge, and that's
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built right into the deburring tool. So, what you want to do is mark the pipe, then push up until you hit your mark.
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Every push fit horror story that you're going to hear about in a comment section somewhere comes down to a fitting that never got seated all the way. These are how you can avoid that altogether. Now, once I've verified that everything looks
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good to go, I can turn the water back on, go purge the air out at any fixture, and then come back and put your hand on every single joint down there. Every one of them. You want to make sure to check
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for any sort of precipitation, any leak, anything like that. Now is the time to make sure we've done it correctly. As you saw in my drawing for laying this out, I'm going to have to add several elbows to this in order to make it work.
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Going to have to do some kind of jigsaw puzzling, but this is all pretty quick and pretty easy, especially because I've got PEX, which is pretty simple to work with. Now, remember, you should have already set your dial to what will work
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out to about 140° water, but this is a good time to double-check and make sure that that's in place. Now, once everything's installed, that's when we set this little valve right here. Most valves are going to default to 120°, but
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make sure to check yours because they don't always default to that. This one adjusts very simply by turning the blue cap here. And there is a little screw in there that you can loosen to make further adjustments, but check your
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manual to make sure you're doing it as per manufacturer's recommendations. I'd also highly recommend that you put a calendar reminder for about once a year to use that meat thermometer and hot water test to see exactly what temperature you're getting. You want to
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make sure that you're not getting any stuff that's aggregating in your cold water inputs, for example, or your hot water that might change that temperature. So, just keep an eye on it.
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It's a lot easier to deal with that than to deal with getting a new water heater or any other issues that might come up.
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Up on the screen here, you'll see several different configurations for pipes that might be coming out of your water heater, since yours probably looks different than mine. Now, you can feel free to pause here and take a look at
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the different offerings for each of these because everyone requires something a little bit different, but most of them are covered by the same few products. So, use whatever works for your scenario. Lastly, let's talk about maintenance costs for making this
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change. Basically, all you're doing is you're turning the hot water temperature up for your water heater, and that means that it's going to be less efficient overall. Cuz if that's sitting there all night, for example, at 140, it's going
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to have to keep working to try to keep that water at 140. And so, it's not efficient, it's not perfect, it's going to lose some energy, which means it's going to add to your gas bill. Now, I ran the numbers and this is typically
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going to run about 20 to 30 dollars a year. In other words, it's two bucks a month that we're talking about here, and two bucks a month to get an extra shower out of your tank, an extra capacity out
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of your tank, in my mind, totally worth it. Hopefully, this helps you understand why this little thermostatic mixing valve is such a good deal, and for it just a couple of hours of work and less than 150 bucks, you'd be off to the
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races with more hot water that you can use in your house. Now, be sure to check out this video that I created right over here. This explains how you can install your own powered anode rod, and that makes your water heater last even longer
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and require less maintenance. And don't forget to put that little comment down in the comment section below letting you know what temperature your water is at your house. I'm Nils with Learn to DIY.
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Thanks for watching.
Topics:thermostatic mixing valvehot water heater upgradeincrease hot water outputwater heater safetywater heater installationtank booster valvewater temperature regulationDIY plumbinghot water scald preventionhome improvement
