Howdy again,

The hot water takes a long time to heat up due to the length of run from the water heater. So...

Would installing a recirculating pump be a good idea?

I have seen a type which connects the hot and cold and pushed the water from the hot side to the cold until it gets warm enough. Any body have any thoughts?

Ideally, I would have loved to install a run from the farthest hot point back to the water heater and then connect that to the cold water inlet on the water heater. This would allow convcection to works it magic. Alas, there is no easy way to do that. However, if it makes more sense to do it that way, I suppose I could figure out a way to make it happen. ( I can just hear myself telling the boss: "Honestly honey, all we have to do is paint it and you will barely notice the pipe running across the ceiling"! )

Thanks in advance for you help.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dherman1

Howdy again,

The hot water takes a long time to heat up due to the length of run from the water heater. So...

Would installing a recirculating pump be a good idea?

I have seen a type which connects the hot and cold and pushed the water from the hot side to the cold until it gets warm enough. Any body have any thoughts?

Ideally, I would have loved to install a run from the farthest hot point back to the water heater and then connect that to the cold water inlet on the water heater. This would allow convcection to works it magic. Alas, there is no easy way to do that. However, if it makes more sense to do it that way, I suppose I could figure out a way to make it happen. ( I can just hear myself telling the boss: "Honestly honey, all we have to do is paint it and you will barely notice the pipe running across the ceiling"!!)

Thanks in advance for you help.

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"I have seen a type which connects the hot and cold and pushed the water from the hot side to the cold until it gets warm enough. Any body have any thoughts?"

Show me! I can't see how preheating the cold water would get hot water out to the farthest fixture. And I don't quite trust convection. The only sure way that I know of to get instant hot water to a distant master bath is to;
(1) Install a instant on demand heater in the master bath.
(2) Install a in line "kicker heater" on the branch hot water feed or,
(3) Run a line from the farthest branch back to a circulating pump

Hi Speedball

The type I am referring to is what's known as a cold water return type system.


Here is a link that describes the system.

http://www.chilipepperapp.com/cwrcs.htm

This is from another link: (http://www.redytemp.com/)
How does the water get hot?
The RedyTemp has an extremely sensitive and accurate temperature probe imbedded into it's patented manifold. When the water in the hot water line cools below the homeowners temperature setpoint, a highly efficient pump begins to pump the cool water out of the hot water line and pumps it into the cold water line. Once the water in the hot water line is at the homeowner set comfort set point, the pumping stops. Hence, the homeowner never waits for hot water at their faucets or showers during the scheduled operating times set by the homeowner

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dherman1

Hi Speedball

The type I am referring to is what's known as a cold water return type system.


Here is a link that describes the system.

http://www.chilipepperapp.com/cwrcs.htm

This is from another link: (http://www.redytemp.com/)
How does the water get hot?
The RedyTemp has an extremely sensitive and accurate temperature probe imbedded into it's patented manifold. When the water in the hot water line cools below the homeowners temperature setpoint, a highly efficient pump begins to pump the cool water out of the hot water line and pumps it into the cold water line. Once the water in the hot water line is at the homeowner set comfort set point, the pumping stops. Hence, the homeowner never waits for hot water at their faucets or showers during the scheduled operating times set by the homeowner

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OK, I'm familiar with these systems. I thought this was some type of heat exchange at the heater itself. Take a good look at the diagram. The main complaint I get from a cold water return system is that the cold water is no longer cold water. It's "tempered" water. You're putting hot water in the cold water line so you won't have cold water you'll have tepid water. Regards, Tom

Quote:

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Originally Posted by speedball1

you're putting hot water in the cold water line so you won't have cold water you'll have tepid water. regards, Tom

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Not exactly, a good system "does not" put hot water into the cold line. It would stop pumping before that would happen. Homes act differently in the way they can absorb thermal heat, i.e. cold environment vs hot environment, copper pipes vs pvc, insulated vs non-insulated pipes. They don't all absorb or maintain temperatures the same. That is why adjustable temperature control is important as we discovered after trying different systems in our home, Washington state. With the adjustable temperature control on our redytemp pump we can select just the right temperature that works best for our home. In their installation material it told us that we should make adjustments in temperature until we get no more then 2-3 seconds of warmish water at the sink where we installed the redytemp. Other sinks down the line back to the water heater are always cooler then at the redytemp sink. We found that units which used a pipe clip-on temperature measuring device was not very good at keeping the right temperature in the pipe like ours which actually contacts the water for measurements. The difference was noticeable enough that we stuck with the redytemp and have been please with it for 4 years now.

Thank you very much for the link and the explanation. I've saved your link to disc and put it in my data base and, with your permission, will use it in my answers. Thanks again, tom