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?
If you only care about the shower in the morning, get a Thermostatic Shutoff Valve (TSV). Sounds much more complicated than it is. You let your shower run until it detects hot enough water, then slows to a trickle. You pull a small hanging cord and it opens back up, hot and ready shower. They’re like $20. We’ve had one for years and works great. It’s dumb, but it works.