Instant Hot Water

[Travis Porter]

I would do it, but I am cheap and trying to conserve power. It is irritating to wait 2 minutes to get hot water in my master bath.

If I had natural gas or heated with propane, I would put in on demand hot water units. It doesn't make sense to me keeping 40, 50, or 100 gallons of hot water heated 7 days a week 24 hours a day.

 

[Tarhead]

With the outlet under the sink, I assume you are adding a 110V heater. The pump on this system is located at the water heater. Thermo. valve under sink requires no electricity.

Nope Bruce, the one I saw mounts on the back of the sink cabinet and you run the hot and cold faucet flex lines to the pump/manifold and the manifold has hot and cold flex lines for the faucet. No crawling under the house or splicing into water lines.
http://www.houseneeds.com/shop/manuals/laing_act303btrwbtw_Manual.pdf

 

[junquecol]

I would do it, but I am cheap and trying to conserve power. It is irritating to wait 2 minutes to get hot water in my master bath.

Measure exactly how much water you run out per day, and then get your bill and figure what it costs you, including both water and sewer charges. The electricity might not be as expensive as you think. Remember that you only need to set timer when needed.

 

[grjjpeck]

I installed one of these pumps when my WH expired last summer. The pump kit includes a manifold that you hook up at the farthest sink from the WH. When the pump runs, the water in the hot line is pushed into the cold line, thus returning to the WH via the existing cold water pipe. You still have cold water at the bathroom sink. The main advantage to this system is that it saves water. No more running water down the drain waqiting for hot water. I am on a well & septic system, so that benefit outweighed the extra cost of the electricity to operate it.

 

[Gotcha6]

Let's not propagate misinformation here. Hot water tanks do not "precipitate heavy metals and other contaminans out of the water supply and concentrate them in the tank." If hot water heaters were boiling the water and producing steam I might agree, but you can't concentrate contaminants if you don't boil or at least evaporate some of the water. Having worked in the water and wastewater treatment arena for 6 years, I can say that the cold and hot water in your house are not significantly different - especially if you are regularly using both of them. Notice that I did not say that they are both healthy... I filter all of the water that I drink and cook with.

I'll have to disagree with the settling issue. See photo below of water heater I made into a cyclone:

 

[Tarhead]

What would happen if you put a steel holding tank and a sacrificial rod on the cold side for 10-15 yrs?

 

[Gotcha6]

What would happen if you put a steel holding tank and a sacrificial rod on the cold side for 10-15 yrs?

Water heaters now have sacrificial anodes and are required to have dielectric unions to the water supply. You have to also remember that they are glass lined so there is not much way of having a cathodic action without this. Old style galvanized well pump tanks (not bladder tanks) will accumulate sediment the same way. This is why the discharge on those tanks is located off the bottom about 1/4 way up the tank.
The photo is of what happens when a bladder tank is not installed with a filter on the main line. I had a filter in the line before this heater, but it was for larger debris. The bladder tank systems used nowadays allow sediment from wells to get into faucet & toilet valves causing them to fail prematurely.

 

[Tarhead]

So based on your response it's not really a hot water heater issue, just a holding tank/sediment issue. One of the links Pete posted makes it seem like you'll grow 12 toes and warts if you touch water from a water heater. The source was partly based on a sales promotion from a water purification company. Old sales technique...1. Make the customer sick by amplifying bad things you can fix and blow some smoke to cloud things a little. 2. Offer a cure. 3. Close the deal. 4. Go to the bank. Gotta look at stuff on the internet with a hairy eyeball but I've never used water from the hot water line for cooking because I've seen the insides of a hotwater heater before I saw all this and the photo Dennis just posted. Pretty gross even on city water. The reason I'm still flogging this topic is in discussing this recirc pump idea with a plumber friend, he brought up the fact that my water heater is 15 yrs old so it's time to replace it too. If I go with a tankless version, I can't use the recirc pump and we get a small tank for the bathroom and put it on a timer. Time for a new thread. Tank vs tankless.

 

[Gotcha6]

I'll have to take the blame for the goo that came out of the heater. No one tells you you should periodically drain your water heater to remove that stuff & I doubt 98% of water heaters are.

 

[Dragon]

I like the type with a sensor that knows when you walk into the bathroom and turns on the recirc. pump for a pre-set time to get the hot water to the faucet or zone. Saves lots of water.

Something about that idea sets off my "Big Brother" alarms.:nah: My house, car, or anything else I own has no business nor need to know where I am or what I'm doing or about to do. It's bad enough my cellphone is constantly telling someone where I am.:evil3: I get freaked out by those automatic toilets that flush by themselves. What if I'm still sitting there when it decides to draft? Might wind up being a You Tube moment.:help: