Question: Phil asks the landlady at the hotel if there is any hot water, and she laughs and says there wouldn't be any today. Why wouldn't there be any hot water? Wouldn't the hotel have boilers?
lionhead
25th Oct 2021
Groundhog Day (1993)
Answer: Her laughter seems to imply that the rooms never have hot water when it's as cold as it was that day; maybe the pipes freeze, or her boiler just isn't very good. This isn't a five-star hotel, it's a small B&B run, it seems, solely by Mrs. Lancaster. Maybe she hasn't gotten around to fixing/arranging to fix whatever is wrong with the hot water, or it's just not something she sees as a big problem.
28th May 2009
Groundhog Day (1993)
Question: Toward the beginning of the movie, on Phil's first day at the bed and breakfast, he turns on the shower and it is very cold. He asks the lady in the hallway why there is no hot water. The lady answers "Oh no, there wouldn't be any today." Why not?
Answer: Old fashioned hotels have a single boiler for all the hotel rooms. Once the hot water reservoir is used up there won't be any more to use until the reservoir is refilled. This only happens once every few days.
Answer: Likely because there are a lot of people staying there and using up the hot water.
26th May 2019
Groundhog Day (1993)
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Answer: In a lot of old hotels those days used water heaters instead of boilers. A water heater has a limited amount of water heated, stored in a tank. So at the end of the week and every guest showering and using hot water during that week, the hot water will be gone before they refill the water heater at a specific day.
lionhead
That's not how hot water heaters work. The water temperature is maintained by a thermostat. Once empty, it would take time to heat the refilled tank-but it's not heated on a specific day. The other answer is more correct.
kayelbe