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My mom's hot water heater is in the storage unit outside of the house. It takes for ever for the water to get hot in the kitchen sink but not anywhere else is the house. What could be the problem and how can I fix it?
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The amount of time required to get hot water from the tank to the point of demand is determined by the total length of the overall run of pipe. You can have so limited success by insulating the pipes from the tank to the point of demand, which would reduce the rate of radiational heat loss in the pipe.
If the problem was at all points in the house the obvious solution would be to install a recirculating system, but that can be a very expensive refit if it requires a long run inside the walls. Normally it is more practical during new construction, major rehab or where there is a basement for access.
The make a small recirculating pump that can be installed under the sink and which uses the cold water line as a return line, but I am not a big proponent of them as they too can be expensive to install and require modifying the piping at the water heater to install backflow preventers.
Normally the demand rate in a kitchen or 1/2 bath is quite small by comparision to a full bath with shower. Typically you only need about 2 to 3 gal of hot water for dishwashing or a gallon or so at a time for food prep. The solution is to install a small auxillary water heater in the kitchen. In most cases a 6 gallon tank type electric or a small tankless on demand heater would be more than sufficient to meet the demand. In fact, it is in this application that the tankless water heaters really offer the greatest energy savings.
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