Wife demands hot water...

[dan144k]

@Speedling
They sell instant water heaters which are also boilers, kind of an on demand system with a heat exchanger for the boiler system. and when you want hot water for faucet, it then stops water to the heat exchanger.

Also, some of the instant water heaters need special flue pipe, which can be very expensive. i would recomend a unit with pvc flu pipes.

Also they sell a valve kit for the instant units. it makes cleaning and testing much easier. basically it is a hose bib and main line ball valve combined in one assembly.

 

[Beachbummer]

If you want instant hot water everywhere, the recirculation pump is the only way. I concur big big gas tank + recirculation is the most effective and efficient way. My FIL installed an electric inline heater for a small place. It draws up to 80amps at 220v when it's running 17800watts! More than most air conditioner whole house units. It also does not handle small flows well. Might be his unit, but I was not impressed by this solution.

The recirculation pump will add some consumption as you are warming all the pipes constantly. (That's the point, so hot water is instantaneously available) You can put it on a timer to keep it off at night.i saw this solution on a new house when visiting Salt lake city, and it looked great and has been reported to work exactly as advertised.
Good luck!

 

[dan144k]

Another thing to consider with the instant water heater units is your water quality. if you are on a well which turns tubs and toilets Brown, then stay away from the instant units. they will scale up and not work well.

 

[Mainah]

If you have an oil or ng fired boiler furnace the best option is boilermate IMO. I have an 80 gallon for the whole house with two adults and three teenagers. We never run out of hot water. Also far more effecient than electric.

 

[biglar155]

A word of caution to the "set the temp up" crowd:

My In-Law's used to operate that way. The Mother-In-Law swore you couldn't hand-wash dishes clean enough without scalding water. (No dishwasher? Don't ask...)

A few years ago the Father-In-Law was pulling the washing machine away from the wall when the hot water line ruptured. He was more-or-less trapped between the wall and the machine with no quick exit. He wound up with 2nd degree burns on both of his legs from his knees to his feet. The Doctor told him that if that had been any worse, he'd have been in some real trouble. (I told him he was lucky it wasn't 20" higher.)

They now run their water at "normal" temperature (120 F).

I myself have been "surprised" by super-hot water a few times when washing my hands at friends' houses. I don't find it very pleasant.

Hot Water is one of those things that people forget has a lot of stored energy. Like all stored energy (compressed air, electricity, etc) it should be treated with respect and you should minimize your exposure to it. Most people don't think this way because they don't work in an industrial environment where you (hopefully) get safety pounded into your head on a daily basis.

I know this doesn't help you solve your problem, I'm just trying to remind you to take safety into account when you develop your solution. Those warning labels are on there for a reason.

 

[Speedling]

Another thing to consider with the instant water heater units is your water quality. if you are on a well which turns tubs and toilets Brown, then stay away from the instant units. they will scale up and not work well.

Good to know! I have a well and have high enough iron that my plumber friend says to only use iron out salt in my softener. If it is bad after that he said i need some fancier equipment.

 

[Speedling]

A word of caution to the "set the temp up" crowd:

My In-Law's used to operate that way. The Mother-In-Law swore you couldn't hand-wash dishes clean enough without scalding water. (No dishwasher? Don't ask...)

A few years ago the Father-In-Law was pulling the washing machine away from the wall when the hot water line ruptured. He was more-or-less trapped between the wall and the machine with no quick exit. He wound up with 2nd degree burns on both of his legs from his knees to his feet. The Doctor told him that if that had been any worse, he'd have been in some real trouble. (I told him he was lucky it wasn't 20" higher.)

They now run their water at "normal" temperature (120 F).

I myself have been "surprised" by super-hot water a few times when washing my hands at friends' houses. I don't find it very pleasant.

Hot Water is one of those things that people forget has a lot of stored energy. Like all stored energy (compressed air, electricity, etc) it should be treated with respect and you should minimize your exposure to it. Most people don't think this way because they don't work in an industrial environment where you (hopefully) get safety pounded into your head on a daily basis.

I know this doesn't help you solve your problem, I'm just trying to remind you to take safety into account when you develop your solution. Those warning labels are on there for a reason.

I liked your comment and will be reading it to my wife. I just didn't want you to think thatI liked that he got burnt.

 

[Beachbummer]

Some of the newer faucets allow you to set a max high temp by forcing a cold water mixture at all positions. This would NOT have helped your Father in Law's situation, so the point is well taken.

 

[Bruce]

I am most surprised that @Speedling has not resolved this yet. I imagine Susan saying "if you want a hot wife give me hot water" to which Lee should have responded "yes mam, right away". Can't understand why he would let the wife get cold?

 

[Speedling]

I am most surprised that @Speedling has not resolved this yet. I imagine Susan saying "if you want a hot wife give me hot water" to which Lee should have responded "yes mam, right away". Can't understand why he would let the wife get cold?

Lol
It's true! Only thing holding me back is all the out of town work and the REST of the honey do list!

 

[davel501]

I have a Rinnai in my house and like it for the most part. My well water is 53 degrees year round. Rinnai has a chart on their page that shows what size tankless you need to run x number of gallons per minute with y temperature rise. My full setup cost about $2500 because I installed it myself. I had to repipe my gas line back to the meter and have a larger meter put in. Took the better part of a day to get it done but it was the day before I got my roof redone so I got rid of another hole that could leak. It works great 5 years later and still fills our oversized bath tub with water so hot that my wife usually has to add some cold water to get in.

My well water is terrible, lots of iron but I have a softener and run the Morton green bags.

For what your wife wants you are better off sticking with the tank you have and just insulating the pipes. The biggest change I noticed with the tankless is that it does not leak heat out into the pipes....the water gets cold because the heater is not doing anything. Insulating the pipes will take advantage of that fact.

As far as cost savings goes on your gas bill, I have not noticed any savings unless we are out of town. You would think that you would save money by not heating water when you are not using it but the thing is the hot water never runs out. You can take an hour long shower and never get chased out by the water turning cold. On the other hand, you and the wife can do the environmentally friendly thing and share a shower. You can turn up the heat so nobody gets cold and stay in there as long as it takes.

 

[swatski]

@Speedling made me go and look at what I have. A 75 gal hot water heater/tank in the basement. I don't remember ever running out of hot water, family of 6, guests, whatever. My 0.02.

--

 

[1rjclark]

Tankless with a hot water return or a high demand water heater with a hot water return are both good choices. The return system is gonna provide hot water at the source almost instantly, a properly sized unit will be needed to maintain the demand. A high BTU water heater will heat the water faster then yor normal BTU units. But would require a larger vent. Also your entire potable water system should be sized properly. Any plumber should be able to do this for you. A real plumber (that's had proper training from an acredited apprenticeship program) not a plumbing technician)

 

[txav8r]

@Speedling , we have a setup very similar to @Bruce . We have a geothermal heated and cooled home, and desuperheater circulation through our two 50 gallon water heaters. So when the HVAC system is making a/c, the extra heat provides free hot water. So my electric water heaters don't heat water from mid May until mid October generally...the desuperheater circulation takes excess heat energy and heats the water in both water heaters. Since efficiency and comfort are important to me, a recirculator pump is a HUGE waste of energy and money. However, it provides a good deal of comfort in that it does give you almost instant hot water without having to wait. The way I got around the issue, was having a water heater on one side of the house and another on the other side. So the bedrooms have a separate water heater from the kitchen, laundry, and powder room. It isn't instant, but it doesn't take more than 4 or 5 seconds to get hot that way. I run mine at 125F. Keeping your existing 40 gallon water heater and adding a second, maybe 50 gallon heater in another area, might solve your volume problem, and at the same time, get you more instant hot water, but having the source closer to the use. I don't know how your plumbing lines are run, but your discussion here sounds like you may be making some changes anyway. If so, this is a good efficient alternative, especially if you have propane or natural gas heat. Propane isn't as cheap as natural gas, but it is a far cry better than straight electric. Anyway, just wanted to give you more food for thought!

 

[Bruce]

When we built our house we had a return loop built into our hot water lines. I installed the pump and purchased a timer that I planned to install after we moved in.

Surprisingly we found that we always had hot water quickly without running the pump. Our hot water heater is in the basement and most of our hot water usage is two floors above. I believe cold water in the supply loop is naturally settling back into the tank below. We always have hot water within a few seconds of turning the tap on.

Having hot water quickly may be as simple as connecting the highest point in your water lines back to the hot water heater.

Only the hot water lines in our basement are insulated but we do not have any water lines in exterior walls.

 

[Speedling]

I insulated the pipes 2 months after we moved in (which was about 2 years ago).
I have about 20 foot of pipe to kitchen sink and dishwasher.
25 feet to nearest bathroom.
Almost 80 feet (along the pipe anyways) to the far bathroom.
All the pipes run in crawlspace that is usually around 55 degrees or so. This is why i insulated immediatly. It only had a minor effect.
Hot water heater is 40 gallon 40,000 btu. Not really big enough for our needs i am thinking.
In any case, i talked to the guy working at Lowes today and apparently he is the type that is retired but needs insurance so he has over 40 years doing house installs of every type. He first suggested that in a basement setup all the lines to a faucet can simply have a second line run back to the water heater. This will create it's own cycle in effect because the hot water rises out of the tank and the cold water will sink if the secondary line is set lower than the first, all the way back to the tank.
Now, i am on a crawl and my water heater is on living level. This means same effect will require a pump.
As someone also suggested, a timer is awesome because it means it will be hot where you want it at the usual times and will shut off when you won't be. This means those little pumps will hardly make a difference. Oh, and i say pumps because he also suggested small ones in each bathroom under the sink and one by the kitchen so that each room will essentially be zoned with it being on a timer.

He then went on to tell me Lowes doesn't have these pumps but Home Depot does, lol!

 

[dan144k]

@Speedling
If you run a humidifier on your furnace. Take the furthest line on your hot water pipe and run a small pipe back to feed the humidifier. Will create a return loop whenever the humidifier runs and keep the hot water lines warmer.

I always thought of running it to my ice maker, you know how the hot water pipes always freeze and burst first, concept.

Or put in a small pump, with or without a timer. I have seen the return loops piped into water heater drain line. You can just add a tee and a 2nd boiler drain fitting.

At my house I took out all my corroded steel piping, and installed copper. it was 3/4" and I installed 1". I think, I actually hurt myself with the hot water thing because it takes longer, when lines have cooled down, to heat up more water in larger pipe. Just a gut feeling.

The water heaters have a flapper type check valve at the outlet, so when no flow, less hot water leaves the tank.

 

[zipper]

We have used many kinds of water heaters over the years. The best for our Cheese making dairy farm, LOTS of hot water required above 130 deg., has been a low pressure steam boiler with a heat exchanger. 145 deg. water all day long. This is great for our business, however at the house we use two sources to heat water. A 120kbtu propane water boiler connected to a radiant floor (slab) the third zone connects to a 40gal. tank with a heat exchanger in it. Its all good until the co-pilot wants to fill the big tub, never enough hot to finish the fill. We are going to replace it with a 60 gal. model. We do find that the Outdoor wood boiler 250kbtu and the heat exchanger will recover much quicker than the propane boiler, but we still want a bigger tank.

 

[4x15mph]

Went back to this thread since I am now working on upgrading our water heater as a preventative measure and I have learned some things.

- 80 gallon tanks are not as readily available since new regulation starting in 2015 although you can find some on-line still. My plumber recommends a 50 gallon with a "mixing valve". This allows you to turn up the water heater to a higher hot temp and then when it leaves the water heater it is automatically mixed with cold water to get it to the intended temp. This allows you to mix 50 gallons of hot and produce a similar amount as a 70/80 gallon tank. This also ensures that while the hot water heater may have scalding water, when it leaves the mixing valve and feeds any of your appliances, it will not be a scalding temp unless that is how you set the mixing valve.
- I have always had to wait for hot water at our kitchen tap. He is going to install a "recirculator w/ timer" like was mentioned in this thread. He may also have to do some plumbing at the kitchen faucet based on how the pipes run but more to follow on that. Job is scheduled for next week

Looking forward to turning on the "hot" and getting hot water. Will have to see how 50 Gallons compares to our 80 gallon in terms of always having hot water. I thought some of these ideas may help with everyone's vacation home and RV garage builds.

 

[Speedling]

My water heater is going to get replaced with a 50 so that may be a good way of doing it. We are delaying the upgrade until we either have an issue with the heater or upgrade the kitchen.