Hot water FAST

[egon]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
My hot water distribution and recirculation plans for the new house are in a state of flux

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Pat has discovered the extent and volume of his system will require a permanent Stationary Engineer for operation. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Egon

[GaryM]

Nah! "State of flux" means he's working on a Magnetic-Hydrodynamic Drive like the submarine in "Hunt for Red October" [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[egon]

Well of course Gary! How silly of me to miss that.

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] I'm thinking that I like the idea of switching the H.W. circulator with the bathroom lights. [img]/forums/images/icons/cool.gif[/img] The bathrooms we have planned for the new addition will have more than one door and more than one light circuit, but that's no problem if you use relays to kick the pump on. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] I'm not worried about the lights beng left on; there's probably a lot more chance that a wall-mounted timer would stick on that the lights being left on. One circulator pump will easily do both bathrooms, and maybe even do a loop to the kitchen; which will be a loooooong way from the bedroom wing. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]

[GaryM]

Pat's project is suffering from "feature creep"! Just in case you are unfamiliar with the term, it means that you keep adding features to the product such that it can never be finished. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[GaryM]

CJDave
The Metlund system has a sensor to shut down the pump when hot water reaches it. You don't want to run the pump continuously or you'll be pumping hot water into your cold pipes.

Unless you're thinking of a recirculating system? Maybe I missed that part.

[Pat]

Do the math. At some point a well insulated additional water heater is a vost effective solution.

I have a BAD experience (with my sample of ONE) with the 2 1/2 gaL 120 v water heater that Lowe's sells. It outlasted the waranty(one year) but not a lot. For a few bucks more they sell a 6 gal 120V with a 6 year warranty. With some extra insulation it is cost competitive.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] I was thinking that the pump would be returning the water to the boiler drain fitting on the H.W. heater.....a loop so to speak. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[GaryM]

Yeah, that would be a recirculating setup. That's used in hotels a lot so the folks on the top floor don't have to wait for hot water to come up 12 floors.

But unless there is a lot of water use I think that the heat loss to the environment would run the cost up quite a bit. The system that I have works fine. Pump runs for about 30 seconds in the morning when I first hit the button in the bathroom.

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] I was thinking that if the pump was on only with the lights that it would (1) serve guests that weren't familiar with the intricacies of the house and it's systems; and (2) during the time that the lights were on it is likely that water would be moving anyway; especially if it was being dumped down the drain to get to the really hot water like we do now. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]