Having water at the right temperature plays an important role in how much we enjoy our living situation. If you can’t change the temperature on your water heater, it can lead to cold showers, occasional burns, and high electric bills.

It’s important to know what factors into the ideal water heater temperature in your home. Here are some situations where you should adjust your water heater temperature to prevent any problems.

Illnesses

There are certain temperature settings that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recommends for your heater, one of them being 140 degrees Fahrenheit. This temperature is especially important for anyone with a weakened immune system or respiratory disease. Colder water temperatures can make it more possible for these conditions to worsen.

In this case, you need to keep the water heater temperature at around 140 degrees so that your body can benefit from a warmer environment. There are a variety of tools that you can use to update the heater, and you can find them at services such as CME Pipelining. It also helps to talk to your doctor about how heaters can affect breathing and heart problems if you suspect you’ll need a higher temperature on a constant basis.

Size of the home

The proper setting for your water heater can also be determined by the size of your house or apartment. Those living in smaller homes may be able to handle cooler temperatures because of the smaller amount of space. The water that you use doesn’t have to travel as far or as often because the rooms where you need water are closer together. This makes it easier for you to enjoy warm showers and use hot water for cooking. The lowest recommended temperature is 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

However, occupants of bigger homes need higher water heater temperatures to achieve the level of comfort they want. The bigger the house, the more water you’ll need to keep things working, so 140 degrees at a minimum is the best setting at this point. Otherwise, you’ll need to adjust your knobs more often during a shower so that you don’t get sudden chills, or you may have some chicken for dinner that isn’t as tasty as it should be.

Safety

Knowing how to adjust your water heater temperature also determines how safe you and everyone else in your home is on a regular basis. Safety is an even bigger concern if you have children, as it can be very easy for them to burn themselves if they make contact with water that’s too hot. Children can get third-degree burns from water at 140 degrees in as little as five seconds. With children in the house, you should refer to OSHA’s lower recommended setting of 120 degrees. Children heal more slowly than adults, which makes proper heater settings a bigger necessity.

Bills

We try to save money in as many situations as we can, and one way to do that on a regular basis is by adjusting the temperature of your water heater. How much hot water you use factors into your electric bill, and lower temperatures tend to be more reliable. Other factors that affect how much money you save include the size of your home and how many people live with you, because more people occupying the house means more water is going to be used.

Setting the heater at 120 degrees is a safe bet for getting a smaller bill in the mail, and it helps a little bit more when you increase the temperature in small increments until you find the setting that fits you best. If you still have trouble figuring out which setting is perfect for your living situation, then turn the water tank thermometer down 10 degrees so that you can save up to five percent on your bill.

Consider these situations, so that you can adjust your water heater temperature to where it’s just right when you need it to be.