this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2024
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If you have access to your water heater and some basic tools, a recirculation pump and a smart plug can be life changing.
For about $250 (pump plus smart plug) and an hour or so of your time, you can create a one-way loop that will refresh the water in the pipes and return the cold water to the water heater.
The loop is best located at the place in the house where it takes the longest to get hot water.
You'll have to "suffer" warm water in your cold tap, but using the smart timer to run only the time it takes to warm the water can limit that.
Example pump kit
Gotta mention the downsides. You're gonna pay more for electrical/gas. Since you're basically keeping your hot pipes full of hot water at all times. If you're in an older house and those pipes are copper and in a crawlspace, exposed to 40 degree weather, that's gonna get cold pretty quick.
If you end up with access to old pipes I recommend a good insulation for starters. I insulated my own and my heat up time dropped from like 2 minutes to 30 seconds. Still quite a bit of time to wait but I'd be spending a lot on constantly keeping that longer pipe full with hot water
Absolutely insulate too! It's really cheap and easy (if you have exposed pipes in places). Heck, I insulate my cold water in my attic because it's otherwise a naked run in my attic and that sucks in the summer.
My CA weather privilege is showing (that said, energy and water are crazy expensive here too). You're making me recall all the hell I went through trying to modernize the 1922 house in MN 15 years ago.
I do wonder how much difference it really makes in energy since we'd be evacuating at least as much water from the tank that it would have to heat fresh anyway. We use the smart plug to set things up for time of use: 7am for showers, 11:30 for lunch, 6pm for dinner, etc. That way we can avoid a constant energy suck. I set things up for a 1-click run for the in between times too.
I didn't know that was a thing! I've been thinking of that exact same thing for years, wondering if it was even technically feasible and wondering why it wasn't a standard in new home construction. I can't imagine how much water is wasted by people just waiting for their showers to heat up.
Then again, my local water company recycles waste water from people's homes. So maybe requiring it isn't necessary with modern water recycling programs.
It's a game changer. My smart plug lost its connection while I was messing with my router one day. I had forgotten how bad it was without the pump. I'm in a warm climate so the heat gets paid for twice but I don't even care, it's a luxury I am willing to pay for.
Is it weird with your cold water? Looking into it, it seems like it fills up your come water pipe with warm water. Wondering if that affects drinking water coming from your refrigerator or anything like that.
If your water heater is old (10+ years) and/or in bad shape, it can be full of deposits and in some cases corrosion. Apparently we're all supposed to be bleeding a few gallons from our water heaters monthly to maintain them. I don't know anyone who does.
Our water from the city is total crap (and also the most expensive I've had in my life), so we added a softener and then split all the drinking/cooking water sources off to a RO system. But I'm also the guy with infinite sparkling water on tap from the kegerator in my kitchen (again only a few hundred in equipment and then about $80/yr in CO2, most of which I had from my home brewing hobby anyway).
Fridge water is unaffected. The last sinks where the valves are located are lukewarm for 5 seconds or so. The rest of the sinks are normal for me. I have 2 branches so 2 valves.
Cool! I'm good with the way it is now since I'm used to it. It's not a big deal. I know it wasn't for me specifically, but I appreciate the recommendation.