Rheem Electric Water 491/492/493 Series

Since the 'cold weather' has arrived from down south, in the past 3 months we have 'run out' of hot water by 11pm at night, 9 times, and we live on the Gold Coast, Queensland, where we have allegedly had the coldest early winter since 2007. There are 3 adults, 2 who take about 15 mins each, 1 who takes about 40 mins, 1 sink almost daily of hot water for dishes that can't go in the dishwasher (now cold water whereas the previous dishwasher was on hot water only). I don't know about the electricity use in our bills as the electricity prices keep going up and we also have solar. This hot water system does not seem to cope with temperatures outside which are about 6-7 deg C - this is especially noticeable when my family have had much less usage at times when someone has not been home much. It is shorter in height and slimmer in width than our previous Vulcan 315lt hot water system. We can't use the spa or have baths anymore, we used to have 4 waterbeds, had about 12 Japanese students and 2 tour guides at different times stay, family can no longer stay overnight if they want to have a shower as well. It has been a huge financial mistake and I only bought it because Rheem is supposed to be of good quality. It is not suitable for 3 adults let alone 3-4.

The problem is the showers are too long. 70 minutes at 9 litres (or more) per minute with 50% hot water uses at least 315 litres of hot water per day (the whole tank!) which isn't reheated during the day due to your reliance on off-peak power. Get off the off peak rate and then you'll have hot water all day and night. I have a 160 litre Rheem and never run out of hot water with 4 adults in the home.