4 ms·
US houses can run pretty big, so there can be quite a lot of cold water to flush out of the pipes before hot becomes available; especially for something like a
by swatcoder 2y ago
US houses can run pretty big, so there can be quite a lot of cold water to flush out of the pipes before hot becomes available; especially for something like a morning shower. That can mean tens of gallons of water gone straight into the drain and quie a few minutes of time lost in what many already find to be a pressured morning routine.
Recirculators themselves can make a lot of sense for some people.
But they don't need IoT nonsense, nor the security and durability problems it invites.
- maxerickson 2y agoHalf inch pipe holds roughly 1/100 of a gallon per foot. 10 gallons would be hundreds of feet of piping.
- pixxel 2y agoThe only truly smart thing in this thread.
- D13Fd 2y agoI think the 10 gallons is probably about right. People start the sink or shower going and then go do something else, wasting much more hot and cold water than necessary.
- tzs 2y agoYou can stop most of the hot water waste in that situation with one of these [1]. It's a valve that you put ahead of the shower head. When it senses that the water has warmed up to 95℉ it reduces the flow to a trickle until you turn a lever to restore full flow. [1] https://www.showerstart.com/products/showerstart-tsv3 https://www.showerstart.com/products/showerstart-tsv3
- quesera 2y agoRe: your morning shower example. People seem to make the mistake of setting the mixer valve to their desired temperature position, routing to the shower head, turning on the water, and waiting for the water to reach temperature. That takes a long time, and wastes water. Probably not 10s of gallons, in an ordinary house, but 7-8 would not surprise me. The more efficient procedure is to turn on hot water only, routed to the tub spout only, for ~15 seconds until water is flowing hot. Then move the valve to the desired temperature position, and divert to the shower head. This wastes about 2 gallons. A tankless water heater wastes zero gallons, but it requires a gas pipe to the bathroom.
- uberman 2y agoIt takes about a minute for our shower to get hot maybe less. I basically have time to pee. This is just as fast or slow as was the case for our tank based heater, only now it runs forever and with 4 girls in the house we would never trade back. We also have a big house even by american standards