Our new townhouse is tall – 5 stories tall. The hot water heater is on the
lowest level and the master bath is on the 4th floor. It took a loooong time for the hot water to get from the heater to the spigot – sometimes 10 minutes of running the sink full throttle. That is a lot of water to waste. What to do…
We investigated several options:
– Installing an on-demand, gas fired or electric hot water heater would have required running a new, larger water line up all four floors and running either the gas or a new 220 line up as well. A very expensive proposition.
– Installing a small electric hot water tank in the master bath. Again the expense of the 220 line coupled with the space the tank would use made this an expensive proposition.
– Installing solar thermal on the roof above the bath that fed to a tank in the master bath. This was complicated, expensive and would take lots of space. We may revisit this idea later when we further investigation into PV but for now this wasn’t a good option.
Our final thought – Installing a timed recirculating pump on the hot water heater – was the option we chose to pursue and WOW what a great job this little pump does.
There are lots of different control mechanisms for recirculating pumps – we chose a timer. Set to recirculate from 5-8am, the hot water is ready at the shower head when we are ready for our showers. No more waiting and no more wasting water.
We hope to see a significant reduction in water demand in our next billing cycle and a corresponding dip in water and sewer expenses. I would recommend this economical fix to anyone wondering how to deliver hot water to far off spigots.
