I ran a load of hot water and bleach to clean the washer and at the end, noticed the hot water in the rest of the house was barely warm. After a few minutes, it was hot again, but it only lasted about 5 minutes and then started turning cool. Is this normal?

....you mean in the heat of the night.....??

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Gas or electric?

Depends on whether the washer is a newer efficient model or an older inefficient one. Those old top load washers could use vast amounts of expensive hot water and would use the maximum amount of water for both wash and rinse regardless of how big a load there was. The newer efficient machines use only a tiny fraction of the water as those bad old ones.

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It can take 30 to 40 gallons to wash a load, so maybe.

.....was it a large load......???

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The symptoms you describe sound like your hot water is electric and that the lower heating element has died. If your heater is gas, then I'd guess that it is severe sediment buildup.

I doubt it. Top loaders use more water than front loaders but, water usage in either should be WAY less than 40 gallons. NOTE: as you USE hot water, COLD water is fed into the water heater to replace the hot water being drawn out. Is ANYTHING ELSE using hot water at the same time you're running the washer? Dish washing, showers etc could all contribute to the dearth of hot water for your washer. Also was ANY hot water being used BEFORE you ran the washer? Depending on the recovery rate of your water heater, you might not get hot water as fast as you'd like (especially if it's an old heater).

It's an old 90's electric top loader. It was on max hot and max fill.Google just showed that old washers can use over 40 gallons. That's way more than I thought. That's probably it.. I asked because there are lots of times the hot water doesn't feel as hot as it should and I'm kind of uneasy about the heater.

That was happening with my old water heater, only one electrode was working. I had to replace the lower thermostat. Then it worked properly.

IMO, no. Sounds inefficient or undersized if that's the case.

Granted, the washer doesn't hold 40 gallons, and as the hot is pumped out of the tank, it is refilled with cold. That would slowly lower the temp of the hot water coming out. Maybe your heater does not recover fast enough to keep the hot temp up? Even when my kids were home, I seldom had to be concerned with running several hot water items at a time. Well, except for when my son took his "short" hot showers that last over a half hour.
Does your tank have different settings that could allow for faster recovery time? Maybe you are running an "economy" mode that doesn't let it recover fast for high usage. Example, my heat pump tank has several modes... Full heat pump only, hybrid, meaning both heat pump and electric elements, elec elements only, and a mode called Boost, for fastest recovery time.
Just my 2 cents.

Dave

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The entire wash cycle might use 40 gallons of water, but it uses only a portion of that to fill each part of the cycle. Your water heater should recover some in between. It is also a rare washer that uses straight hot water on the rinse portions of the cycle.

So my money would be on a bad lower element in an electric water heater or sediment in a gas one as mentioned before. A lesser possibility would be a thermostat going bad, and in the case of an electric heater not turning on one or both of the elements when it should.

Are you where the cold weather is? My water heater had a little issue getting hot hot. I couldn't wash my hands in just cold water because it was too cold...

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space-time
That was happening with my old water heater, only one electrode was working. I had to replace the lower thermostat. Then it worked properly.

You mean the lower heater element?

doubtful, unless it's a real old one.
Ours is 12yo and it uses 13G/load.
Conventional older, about 23G/load.

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Buck

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space-time
That was happening with my old water heater, only one electrode heating element was working. I had to replace the lower thermostat. Then it worked properly.

You mean the lower heater element?

I fixed it. The lower thermostst never came on, so the lower heating element was never ON. When I said electrode it was brain fart, it should have been heating element.

I fixed it. The lower thermostst never came on...

How?

Loose connection?

Broken wire?

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RAMd®d
I fixed it. The lower thermostst never came on...

How?

Loose connection?

Broken wire?

I don't recall the details, I think it was just a broken thermostat.

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PS
An empty washer holds more water.

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Staunton, Virginia

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Bernie
PS
An empty washer holds more water.

But not that much more to run out the available hot water.

Yeah, definitely not close to 40g, as others said.

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Hurts like a bastid...

how about you wake up in the morning and before using washer, dishwasher, etc, and take a really long shower and see how long you have hot water?