140 Degrees Hot Enough?
Have learned that our boiler is set at 140 degrees– is that hot enough for a family who likes very hot (and sometimes long-ish) showers?
Have learned that our boiler is set at 140 degrees– is that hot enough for a family who likes very hot (and sometimes long-ish) showers?
12345,
MasterPlvmber is correct and has a very good reason as a business owner to follow the OSHA guidelines. OSHA put those rules in place so people wouldn’t get hurt. His people, my people and your people. (or as we say in Red Hook, All my peoples, yo!)lol
Other posters have responded with regard to 140 deg. F. being too hot for children. I tend to think if a client has children, they would be more than a little concerned if the kids contracted infections from ohhhhh lets say, E. Coli or Cryptosporidium parvum or everyone’s favorite Salmonella typhi. Pretty s@#$%y situation that dysentery is..
Plain and simple. Set your domestic hot water aquastat, that’s the one on the hot water coil to 140-150 deg. F. Set your mixing valve (I hope you have one, if not call a plvmber and get one installed ASAP) to 120 deg. F.
If you have a hot water heater, the big tank with the flame under it (yuck) set the dial on the front to the Hot setting on a AO Smith or 140 on a dial that has numbers, then temper down with the mixing valve as I stated before.
Good luck.
-Steam Man
I think by boiler he means hot-water heater else it makes no sense. And that stuff about 140, regardless of OSHA or other panic-mongers, is hardly ever observed.
Obviously they’re not showering at 140 unless they are Visitors. So the only issue is safety and saving energy. As MP said in another post, setting temp high gives you more hot water because you’d temper it with more cold.
Many stupid responses to this one!!!
The internal boiler temperature will be different from the water “tank/heater” temp and different from what would be a normal hot shower temp.
My god 140 is too hot, reduce it or else you will get burnt yourself. are you trying to that even if you set the degree at 140 the water is not getting hot or you still need more hot.
Are you saying that your hot water heater’s set to 140°, but the water from your showerhead feels cooler? If so, could be the setting of the thermostatic mixing valve.
they also said risk from home hot water system is very low and could use that temp if someone is high risk. But not if small children, elderly around.
Certainly 140 is hot enough…perhaps too hot.
Denton is right. But don’t take our word for it.
OSHA says to set your water heater to 120 degrees if you want a bacteria farm.
http://www.osha.gov/dts/osta/otm/legionnaires/faq.html
I do believe the temp in a hot water storage tank is supposed to be 140def F to kill germs. But it shouldn’t come out of the faucet at much more than 120 deg F.
boiler? are you talking about a hot water coil in your boiler or do you mean you hot water heater?