We just bought a large home with 3 bathrooms upstairs. It takes a long time to get hot water to the master bedroom showeron second floor (seems it gets there faster in the sink) which is situated above the hot water tank in the basement. In My daughters room, on the other end of the house, it takes at LEAST 5 minutes of water running and opened to the hottest running to get it there and then she says she doesn't even have to turn it down because the temp doesn't change. Anyone know what we can do about this? Should I turn the hotwater tank up higher? Is it not big enough to get to the upstairs baths? It also seems to take too long in my kitchen for the hot water to get there. This house is only 5 years old. Thanks in advance for any help.

We have good reports with the Metlund hot water re-circulating system to the point that I bought one, but it's not installed yet.

It's not continuous. It's not gravity. It's kind of, an as needed, method by pushing a button or motion detection.
Bath is a good application for motion sensing. Kitchen, a good application for a button.

www.metlund.com

I have installed a few of the Watts recalculating pumps and it works good, if you install this system you will have instant hot water especially in the upper showers see the attachment for detail, Thanks.

John

The Metlund system is a nice solution but it has 2 problems.

First you will need an electrical outlet under the sink and in most municipalities you need a permit for that.

Second is that to activate it you need to push a button which also needs to be wired from below the sink to above the sink or use a remote.

The pumps that use timers do give you hot water but at the expense of energy costs. If your pipes are hot all of the time they are losing energy and the water will be recirculated to the water heater to be heated up again.

Another solution to look at is the WaterQuick Pro II. It installs at the water heater and is activated by turning on any hot water faucet in your home.

The way it operates is turn on a hot water faucet and then turn it off. Wait about 10 seconds and you will have hot water.

The theory behind the system is the same as the Metlund system. However it costs less and is a lot easier to install (about 1 hour) and if you are good with a wrench you can do it yourself. Otherwise any plumber or handyman can do it for you.

Google WaterQuick Pro II to get more information.