Home Remodel: Do, Don'ts, Advice

[zion zig zag]

I never leave our house for more than two days without shutting off our well pump. Cheap insurance to avoid a disaster, leaking water heater, broken pipe, toilet that is running etc etc.

Heat is in floor radiant. But that’s probably a closed loop? I should learn more about that.

[ötzi]

Never heard of radiant that wasn't closed loop (except electric). Pumps fail but the loops themselves rarely do. To circle back to your well, get the pressure tank checked first, that's probably it. After that, check the check valve.

Question: we have a hot-water recirc system, the pump was leaking out the housing, we got it replaced. Since then it's not circulating the hot water as well (it now takes hot water a while to reach far-away faucets), are these Grundfos recirc pumps adjustable for flow rate? Don't want to call the plumber out here. New pump out of the box, it has power, clean install, flow rate is all I can think of. Don't know the model number but I can post pics if it would help. Thankaverramuch.

[Vt-Freeheel]

They would have a switch on the housing if adjustable Ice. Circs for lack of better term can get vapor locked. You might have a bubble in the loop causing a problem. If there is a drain on the return near the tank hitch a hose on and run the water until the bubbles are gone.

[Flounder]

Ice, we added a recirc loop a couple of years ago with a Grundfos unit. First thing to check is that the sensor is placed properly. Our plumber had the sensor in a bad location, we also have a solar hot water tank so it’s a bit more complex than a normal install. Once that was corrected we still had issues.

Not sure if your pump has it but I think most Grundfos pumps do have the auto adapt feature. It takes a while for it to learn your patterns. The first couple of months we often had long wait times for hot water. Almost yanked it out it seemed so crappy. After a couple of months it settled in and it’s been great. Take a look at what the settings are. IIRC you can set it for auto adapt, temperature, or timer. Hopefully you just need to wait out the auto adapt feature, once it has enough data it does work.

[ötzi]

Cool thanks fellas that gives me enough to go on.

[Core Shot]

My master has an alleged gravity recirc line.
Doesn’t work for shit.

Can’t see having hot water always recirculating.

Anyone have something better?
Was thinking of a 110 volt 3 gallon water heater in the crawl space. Or is that less efficient than running a grundfos recirc?
If my bride had a normal schedule I’d run recirc on a timer for morning and night only

[climberevan]

The hot tip, provided you have a regular water heater (not tankless), is to put these valves at each faucet that open when the temp in the hot line drops below a set point. Then a pump mounted on the WH pushes hot water through into the cold lines. No recirc lines are needed, so the system works well for remodels. You only install them where you need quick hot water.

https://www.watts.com/products/plumb...systems/596816

We've done a few installs and the clients like the system.

[old_newguy]

Is waiting 30 seconds for hot water or washing with cold water really that big of a deal?

I keep seeing this trend towards recirculate lines and just think it’s all money you never get back in install costs and heating hot water going around in a circle.

[Core Shot]

I have a recirc line. It just doesn’t work.

I’ll check out that watts system

The thing I don’t like is wasting water trying to get hot water in the master when you need it.

My latest thought is a grundfos recirc and a wall timer switch. Recirc on demand.

[Flounder]

Is waiting 30 seconds for hot water or washing with cold water really that big of a deal?

I keep seeing this trend towards recirculate lines and just think it’s all money you never get back in install costs and heating hot water going around in a circle.

For us it was required by the local code official when we added a second bathroom. Supposedly the cost of the pump running is much less than the cost of pumping, filtering, distributing, collecting, treating, and dumping back in the lake the gallons of water that run while waiting for the water to warm up.

[::: :::]

Is waiting 30 seconds for hot water or washing with cold water really that big of a deal?

Just level of service
Your personal comfort
There are folks out there that insist on every comfort

The range graph of comfort requested is hyperbolic
A small quantity of people do request ridiculous levels of comfort at both ends of the range

[JayPowHound]

Is waiting 30 seconds for hot water or washing with cold water really that big of a deal?

I keep seeing this trend towards recirculate lines and just think it’s all money you never get back in install costs and heating hot water going around in a circle.

This makes sense to me. House is 1847, "modern" plumbing on town water with 0 issues. To the opposite effect, just finished washing a sink load of dishes and wanted a glass of water. Had to run the sink for 10 sec on cold to clear the lines from the hot tank. Predictable, then cold. All good.

[ötzi]

In new construction it's generally not that expensive, saves water and increases comfort. In renovation it would be unlikely to be worth it.

[snowaddict91]

My house has a crawlspace and the shower and kitchen are both on the opposite end of the house from the water heater. I don't mind starting the dishes with cold but I cringe at how much freezing cold water goes down the drain in the shower. of course water here is a precious thing, growing up in the midwest with a spring running through a catch basin in our basement, who cares.

[old_newguy]

So, I’m sure someone did the analysis on the water conservation side, but a 3/4 line has 0.022 gallons of water per foot. So if your hot water heater is 45 feet away from your tank then you are saving a gallon of water by pumping hot water around in a circle 24/7 plus another component to fail.

Doesn’t pencil out for me.

Seems like you could achieve better results by requiring a shut off timer on the shower.

Or maybe i need a bigger house so this is a problem for me.

[ötzi]

It's whatever floats your boat, man. People value things their own ways. I'm not gonna try to sell it to you but we built this house and there's other money I'd rather have back first.

[old_newguy]

It's whatever floats your boat, man. People value things their own ways. I'm not gonna try to sell it to you but we built this house and there's other money I'd rather have back first.

Eh, I’m just curious what I’m missing in the equation beyond the convenience/comfort thing.

We also have an entire thread devoted to people putting stuff on their cars in case they go off road.

[ötzi]

Well, those people are wack.

[muted reborn]

Doesn’t pencil out for me.

It pencils out fine for many, many people.

[RootSkier]

there's other money I'd rather have back first.

Let's hear it.

[ötzi]

The biggest one would be the metal roof. I loved how it looked but now there's solar panels all over the south side, which is where the driveway brings you. Asphalt shingles would have lasted as long as I'm gonna be around and would've saved a lot of money and looked basically as good.

Trying to get away with no gutters is another one, it would've been a lot cheaper and easier to put them in from the start.

We wasted a lot of money on lighting fixtures that don't get used and wiring for them.

off the top of my head

[Skidog]

The biggest one would be the metal roof. I loved how it looked but now there's solar panels all over the south side, which is where the driveway brings you. Asphalt shingles would have lasted as long as I'm gonna be around and would've saved a lot of money and looked basically as good.

Trying to get away with no gutters is another one, it would've been a lot cheaper and easier to put them in from the start.

We wasted a lot of money on lighting fixtures that don't get used and wiring for them.

off the top of my head

Sounds like the wife made a lot of the design decisions? Happy wife, happy life.

Sent from my Pixel 4a (5G) using TGR Forums mobile app

[ötzi]

She has a good friend who's an interior decorator, the two of them ganged up on me on some stuff. It came out nice, it just cost a lot for some stuff of questionable value. But the roof and the gutters was me.

The gutters would have been fine but it's in a historic district that has oversight on exterior appearances and they made us take off the roof overhangs that were in the design and I decided to see if we could still get away without gutters despite the change. Nope.

The roof looked great but solar is such a good deal here I decided to do it. I was away when the panels got installed, I thought I was gonna puke when I first saw how it looked but now I don't even see them so whatever.

[skifishbum]

havin stayed at the otzilpalace im goin with turned out real nice
but icepalace has a way better ring to it
got a new ac and tankless heater is goin in this week
havin 2 decades old things that would suck to fail and not having to dyi either
doesnt suck

[old goat]

She has a good friend who's an interior decorator, the two of them ganged up on me on some stuff. It came out nice, it just cost a lot for some stuff of questionable value. But the roof and the gutters was me.

The gutters would have been fine but it's in a historic district that has oversight on exterior appearances and they made us take off the roof overhangs that were in the design and I decided to see if we could still get away without gutters despite the change. Nope.

The roof looked great but solar is such a good deal here I decided to do it. I was away when the panels got installed, I thought I was gonna puke when I first saw how it looked but now I don't even see them so whatever.

Interior DESIGNER sir. Interior designer. Maybe they called them interior decorators when you wound up in that glacier but that was a long time ago.