Hot water takes looooooooooooong

[xenithon]

Hi all. I recently moved into a new place. It is an older complex - very solidly built, mostly solid concrete. I have one small gripe - and that is the hot water which takes very long to "heat up", especially downstairs (geyser is located above the stairs). Particularly an issue when it comes to washing dishes - switch on the tap, leave it running, and takes at least 3-4 full minutes for hot water to arrive. And when it does arrive, it never gets truly hot....to the point where dishes are washed using solely hot water, never touching the cold water tap. Even after 7-8 minutes running, it gets hot but never scalding/boiling.

Before getting in a plumber (who can pull wool over the eyes) I wanted to ask if anyone has an idea of what it could possibly be? The only two plausible explanations I have had are that:
- the geyser does not have a sufficiently high pressure; or
- with the pipes running through solid concrete, the water loses heat as it travels through the walls down to the kitchen

Upstairs it also takes some time but not as bad - maybe 2 minutes and water gets hot. It also gets extremely hot, so not too much of an issue.

I am quite keen on installing one of those instant under-counter water heaters to connect to the kitchen mixer, and bypass using water from the geyser completely. So if anyone has recommendations of products and/or companies that do that, please let me know.

Thanks in advance
X

 

[gbyleveldt]

 

[Dingbat]

 

[AVSA Andrew]

 

[Dingbat]

 

[philipc]

 

[tangmonster]

 

[Dingbat]

 

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[tangmonster]

 

[chrisc]

 

[chipwelder]

 

[mafioso]

 

[Andre Vermeulen]

 

[philipc]

 

[xenithon]

 

[AVSA Andrew]

 

[ingenieus]