Multiple water heaters Beállítások

[ftrsquish]

Hello All,

Sorry if this is a stupid question.

I currently have a 50gal water heater in my basement. (plenty) Now with my remodel/additions complete we are 120 liner feet one end to the other. I am considering a recirculation pump but also adding a heater more near to the demand.

Is there any reason or code why I would not install a low boy in the conditioned crawl. AO has a 6 and 19 that will fit.
I was thinking of running hot water from the 50gal to the cold inlet of the cowboy.

Thoughts?

[Guest_Guest_ftrsquish_*_*]

This may be a dumb question but, if the demand is mainly 120ft away from where your water heater presently is, and if you are OK with doing all the necessaries to install a second tank, why not just move the main tank to a more central location? Is the main tank gas fired & unable to be moved?

In the absence of a reason to expand the capacity / recovery time of your present system, (which you have said is plenty), the simplest option would be to do a recirculation system. They have systems that use the cold water line as a "return" so you don't have to run a separate recirculation loop, you can just use the existing plumbing and call it a day.

[Guest_charterpoison_*]

My current gas heater is in the utility room in the basement of the original build. The additions are on a conditioned crawl space.

I have plenty of access to add a dedicated return for a recirc pump but the north addition is a laundry and powder room with no real consistent way to program a pump considering the hot water demand is infrequent and irregular. I was thinking of a 6 gal AO.

[Guest_charterpoison_*]

That will work, but if you have all of your lines well insulated, or can do it, a recirculation system is a decent solution as it (generally, if done right) will get hot water to nearly everything along the way. Some turn the pump on/off, some shut the flow on/off so that there isn't constant flow, saving some energy. Mine shuts the pump on/off. It tends to run about 1-minute about every 10-15 minutes. I also run it on a timer so that it doesn't run while I'm generally sleeping or away. There are remote switches you can include, but that requires you remember to do it. One possibility would be to use an occupancy sensor which would work if you used the toilet first (to give it some time) so you'd have hot water to then do whatever you wanted.

[Guest_monsterftr_*]

I have plenty of access to add a dedicated return for a recirc pump but the north addition is a laundry and powder room with no real consistent way to program a pump considering the hot water demand is infrequent and irregular. I was thinking of a 6 gal AO.

The answer to your original question is of course, yes you can do what you are proposing. The question it seems like you might be asking is, what makes the most sense?

So, just to clarify here -- what is your main goal? Lowest overall system operating cost? Unlimited instant hot water at the far lavatory? Something else?

If you are worried about standby losses in the pipes from the long 120ft plumbing run, and you are thinking that having the 2nd heater close to the laundry & lav will be better than having a hot recirculation running, then you should run cold (not hot from the main water heater tank) to the new water heater.

Otherwise you'll be in the same situation as with a recirc loop; every time you draw off your new lowboy you'll be pulling hot water out of your main tank & charging up the 120ft pipe.

But with cold supply to your new lowboy you'd then be operating partly off electric for bulk water heating. As I'm sure you know electric is somewhere between 25-100% more expensive per gallon of heated water when compared to gas (depending on many factors). And, you'll have slower recovery & more limited capacity at the laundry/lav. Which is, I suspect, why you wanted to pipe already-heated water into your new lowboy instead of cold.

In short, it's hard to see what you are gaining by adding the 2nd heater tank, that isn't also addressed by a simple recirc loop, unless (again) you need to add more total system capacity.

[Guest_steeveell_*]

Thanks for the replies. I will evaluate the pros and cons, Mainly,, i did not want to do something against code or frowned upon in the industry.

Chris

[Guest_andikishore_*]

Thanks for the replies. I will evaluate the pros and cons, Mainly,, i did not want to do something against code or frowned upon in the industry.

Chris

It's important to note that I'm not a professional and also can't advise you on local code. But it is not unheard of to run water heaters in series (which is basically what you are proposing). Good luck.

[Guest_BaJinuiou_*]

Most of the time when running them in serial, they both have full power to them, either gas, or electric, so no futzing around with rewiring the elements and thermostats is required (which might void the UL rating, not sure). That way, you use one as a preheater.

[Guest_charterpoison_*]

I'm using a RedyTemp unit...it is totally self-contained as it houses the pump, cross-over, check valves, and sensors all inside the box. Down side is that it all sits underneath the sink at the furthest location and requires a plug to power it. Up side is it's simplicity itself to install if you have the space, (it's not all that large) and power (I ran a line from the receptacle above and installed another receptacle inside of the vanity cabinet).

It has an adjustable aquastat to set how warm the water must be before it turns off and an easy way to integrate a timer if you wish. When the timer first comes on in the morning, mine tends to run maybe about 2-3 minutes, then shuts off. It will cycle on a few times/hour. I timed it this morning...it ran for all of 18-seconds to bring the temp up, but I had recently used the shower. More normal would be maybe 40-50 seconds. I have mine set so it gets warm at the vanity, but that means everything behind it is hot. Nice part, you can adjust that which limits the amount of wasted heat and the amount of warm water going into the cold return (it will work with a dedicated return line, but mine was a retrofit without an easily installed dedicated return). They claim their valve is rated at a million cycles. Mine is now 13-years old and while I've worn out a few timers, the box still works fine. You could easily run it without a timer if you had a need for 24-hour hot water access, or you could substitute a remote control on function with say an occupancy sensor, or a switch. I find that if I flush the toilet, then open the cold, it's only warm for maybe 4-5 seconds...the toilet water use flushes the warm water, and there's only a short section left to purge when I open the vanity faucet. Turning up the aquastat would require running the pump longer, and the 1.6g flush toilet might not purge it all out. That's only an issue if you want cold water at that faucet...most of the time, you're probably washing your hands, so it's no big deal. IT doesn't push hot water back far enough for other faucets behind it get warm in my layout.

There are lots of ways to do this, and more than a couple of companies that make complete systems. The one I chose was easy to install, and works well for my situation. Just unscrew the hoses to the vanity faucet, install them on the outlet side, run new hoses from the unit to the wall, turn the water back on, and plug it in...you're done. FWIW, my vanity hoses were a little short, so I bought a connector and another set to extend them, but you may not need to do that depending on where you placed the unit. The hoses were not removable from my faucet, otherwise, I'd have just bought longer ones. They've changed a few things since I bought mine, but they function the same. If you're going to do this yourself, and don't want to or can't start cutting and soldering things, or don't want to take the time, the extra cost will probably offset the plumber's charge since you can do it yourself. IF you can do it yourself, while it's a nice system, you can get good results from others for less. WHen I bought mine, the price differential wasn't very much, so the convenience won. I do think that their design is more efficient overall, but the payback may take forever.

Many people don't want to put a receptacle under the vanity to power the thing or lose the space, so the more common installation will have the pump at the WH, and valves and sensors potentially scattered around the house. My hot water pretty much is a single trunk, so putting it at the end gets everything before it hot. If you have long branches, it may require some different setups to minimize the wait on hot water. So, one solution won't work well for everyone.

If the supply system is properly designed and installed for it, you could probably get by with just convection providing hot everywhere. Most systems aren't designed for it, which is why you end up needing a pump.

[ftrsquish]

I am going to try the circ pumps first. I would have to connect the drain pan to a pump and blow off to the out side. It is a a lot of parts to consider so I am going the recirc pump. It should work just fine. I might try a cap tube thermostat with a timer to turn off at night like the previous poster mentioned.
They are conditioned crawl spaces so with the pipe insulated well i should not have much heat loss.

Thank again

[bining]

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