Having a faulty water heater in your home throws a serious wrench into the daily business of life. Hot water, or rather the lack of it, is a great equalizer: it will slow down the richest of us to a standstill. With my wife, I have family and friends who have grown to love and serve in the community of Citrus, CA. In our family, we joke that they very well might shun us were it not for the communities, families, and friends we have known there. And that said, with a not-so-subtle segue at the end, Citrus is shorthand for Pasadena, CA, well-known in our family.
Every type of water heater has its own particular set of problems. If you have a common tank-type water heater, it might be experiencing a leak or intermittent overheating, causing it to run too hot and shut itself off. A tank-type model is at risk—if it hasn't already experienced one—of getting some serious rust, which can do quite a bit of damage to a home. On the other hand, a heater of the "on-demand" variety may be pressure-testing the limits of exactly what "on-demand" means. In other words, is it the heater that's the problem, or is it the amount of water that you're trying to heat? Both of these situations—and others like them—are perfectly serious and warrant a professional take.
Climate can also affect how well your water heater works. The hard water we have here tends to put a lot of minerals into your heating system, and we both know that over time those minerals build up. They don't seem to be doing much at first—sure, they're corroding parts of your heating system—but the real issue being core parts of the heating element becoming encrusted in hard minerals. Without maintenance, this seems to work okay, but eventually, you have a system that is working too hard (and too long in your case) to deliver the same amount of hot water without heating it up to 160 degrees or more.