I'm dissapointed

You had a lot of good ideas tossed around. Disregard any that you don't like. Some of us throw out off-the-wall stuff to get you thinking about different ways to solve the issue...

They make/have systems that can do what I think you want done. Maybe not exactly like you were thinking... Here is one that works by turning on the hot water faucet for a second or two and then shutting it off. That causes the recirculating pump at the water heater to come on.

I've heard of these before, many years ago so there must be other versions/makes available too.

I have pretty hard well water. It would toast/ruin that setup pretty quick, along with most of the others. Friends I have with city water would probably get a lot longer lifespan with it...

I'm no expert on hot water recirculation systems, but the ones I have seen used two hot water tank type heaters. A little one that kept the water in the pies hot, and a larger one for bulk hot water. I was not really interested so I didn't look them closely. I didn't see where I had anything to add so I didn't post.

Several days ago I posted a question about hot water recirculation. I explained what I wanted to do and NOBODY addressed it. There were responses but these responses did not mention my main question. In fact responses included options which I had explicitly ruled out. There used to be a wealth of good advice here. What's the problem with posting something that is appropriate? When folks post questions here and I think I can help I post replies that actually address the questions. I don't post ruminations that won't help. Shit. Eric

If I had any ideas for you I'd sure post them ... IIRC you didn't want to run wiring , running return piping was a problem , did anyone suggest point of use heaters ? Because of the distance from the kitchen sink and dishwasher to the water heater , I plan to install one . My situation is more flexible , I'm still constructing on the house .

Wish I could be more help ...

--

Snag

You dismissed the obvious solutions, so what else did you expect?

The timer I suggested would run the pump only long enough to replace the cold water in the pipe with hot, so you need just a momentary Start pulse to control it.

Recirculating the hot water through the cold pipe means you no longer have cold water immediately to drink or to temper the hot, plus it wastes energy outside of heating season. Presumably you can't insulate the pipe if you can't run wires along it.

The only other place to dispose of the room temperature water in the pipe is down the drain, which a leaky faucet will do.

I had no good answer that met your restriction of only unpowered passive components at the remote end.

-jsw

Well, cussing out the ones who did isn't likely to help, either; as the other respondents noted, you've pretty-much ruled out any realistic solution.

I have no solution that meets the spec's, either, but I'd note that the system even if you were to find a way to make it work is simply an energy and water drain; you're routinely throwing water down a drain and reheating its replacement to subsequently cool and be reheated and replaced yet again. Is a few seconds wait really worth the continuing cost over the life of the house? You may think so, just noting it won't be insignificant.

The only really practical solution I'd see would be the one that has been ruled out--the POS tankless heater.

I'll mark the thread to ignore so won't see the return flames and be tempted further... :)

I thought of this but I don't think it fits your criteria.

I really did mean to post this earlier, but sometimes life gets in the way. How about controlling the pump with a timer that's triggered by a wireless remote button? There are wireless doorbells and wireless light switches, s urely there must be something like it already on the market.

I really did mean to post this earlier, but sometimes life gets in the way. How about controlling the pump with a timer that's triggered by a wireless remote button? There are wireless doorbells and wireless light switches, surely there must be something like it already on the market.

==================

There are wireless motion detectors that would turn on the pump to circulate water only if someone was in the room. When I posted that the problem was poorly specified I meant the conditions that might turn on the pump to anticipate need, rather than wastefully running it continuously.

-jsw

This system/company supplies a variety of different switches & buttons to work with their solution. Their solution isn't what Eric wanted but I suspect some of these accessories may work with other setups:

I found this guy's website interesting. It can get pretty expensive to have that hot water ready at the faucet:

They wouldn't work with mine either. When I want hot water for laundry I get up early and build a fire to heat the kettles.

I'm not quite that bad but I do have to turn the water heater up a half hour or so before doing the wash or taking a bath. Normally it is turned down all the way, basically just the pilot running.

Guess we're a couple of cheapskates ;-)

He didn't want to run pipes or wires, so what did he expect? When you post about some topic, discussion ensues. How long did all the posts for the whole discussion (so far) take to read, TEN MINUTES? Sure, it's nice if only The Perfect Answer comes to the request, but how often does that happen?

Forget these guys. They say "hot water heaters". ;)

- The list of Obama administration disappointments would take three rolls of toilet paper to record. --BMF

not taking into account the heating provided to the house by the circulating hot water - an asset in the winter, a cost for cooling in summer

IIRC he ruled out adding wiring and wanted an all-passive way to use a tempering valve at the far end. I didn't have a solution that I would use myself.

-jsw

If I had any knowledge in doing what you want to do, I would have given you a better answer. But as it was, I told you what my thoughts were. No, t hey did not solve your problem. But I replied with what I think is a bette r solution, but one that takes more work and work that you do not want to d o.

Sorry about that. Next time ask a question about something I know the answ er to.

Dan

How far is the tank and pump run going to be ? Is it all insulated ? I have known people that turned off the recirc. pump and did without it as it ran far to much money out of the bank to the electric company.

If the far end is a xyz - then get a local demand heater in line that your tank feeds. So the local demand doesn't work much if only at startup. Doesn't have to be a monster just heat the water between it and the hot water heater and if the pipe is insulated it turns off until you run the tank cool and then you always get hot from the local.

Martin

I just today did exactly that , using a 2.5 gallon slightly-used heater I bought from an ad in the local paper . I was going to buy new

from the main tank takes long enough that the dishwasher was having extended run times because the water wasn't hot enough . -- Snag