Meme: Sad Pablo Escobar meme moping around
Caption: Me waiting for the hot water to reach the sink every morning
If you have the money, the most efficient way to solve this is to install an on-demand tankless water heater at every single outlet that has hot water (e.g., not the toilets). The downside is that this is a very expensive way to solve the problem; not only do you need to buy the water heaters, you need to run new electrical to every single one (or new gas lines, which would be even more expensive). The upside is that you get hot water as fast as a recirculating pump, but without the cost of constantly running a pump and your water heater.
Many years ago I lived in an apartment in San Diego that had recirculating hot water (there was no water heater in my apartment); I guess the apartment complex figured that the cost of constantly heating the water was cheaper than the cost of the water that they would otherwise lose down the sewer while people were waiting for the water to heat up in their apartment.
Recirculating pumps dont have to run constantly. Usually they are on a timer for when you most often need hot water, and the pumps arent that power hungry. For a couple hundred bucks a typical house can have one installed.
You have three issues - yeah, the pump doesn’t use that much power, but it does use power. If you’re trying to reduce electricity consumption to the bare minimum, a tankless water heater right at the tap will be slightly more efficient. It doesn’t have to always run, but for people that don’t have predictable schedules, that can result in my wasted water. And your water heater is going to have to run more, because even with insulated pipes, you’ll be losing some heat as the water circulates.
It is absolutely better than running the taps wide open until you get hot water, especially if you live in a place with limited water availability. I wouldn’t use my solution for anything other than new construction due to the cost of running so much new wiring.
Thank you for the info, I had no idea this existed. I’m going to install one when I redo my kitchen! It’s so wasteful to have to wait 15s for hot water…
My kitchen is fairly far from my water heater, which is very close to every other hot water tap in my house. So when washing dishes I often have to run the tap to get hot water in the kitchen. In summer I run this water into my watering can for my garden. In winter I collect it in a jug and pour it into my clothes washer.
Same. Water heater is on the opposite side of the house from the kitchen sink. I have to run the sink for several minutes just to run the dishwasher, which is annoying as hell. I hate how much water have to waste just for the dishwasher to get hot enough to clean effectively.
You can fix the issue by installing a pump on your water heater, but that’s a project that I’m saving for when I need a new one in a few years.
Wait what ? I thought the vast majority of dishwashers had internal heating to avoid exactly these kind of issues
This depends on where you live in. AFAIK, in Europe dishwashers are not even hooked up to hot water, just cold. In America their standard plug electricity is weaker and therefore it’s not enough for a dishwasher to heat the water hot enough to sanaitze.
This is the reason electric kettles are not a big thing in America (they take significantly longer to heat the water) and “home electrification” is a bigger deal there.
And as always, to anyone interested, Technology Connections talks about this in his videos on dishwashers, induction stovetops and kettles.
That’s my kitchen sink. Takes forever to get hot water but the bathroom (Which is further from the tank) takes half the time.
The joys of an old house.
Same here but I’m in apartments that are less than 10 years old. So it’s not just old houses. Also poorly built apartments.
It has to run out of all the water that was sitting still between the output hole and the input source where it’s heated. If your apartment has a central water tank, that has its advantages - e.g. a whole family inside your place could take successive showers without ever running out of hot water - but this is the primary disadvantage to that, the wait to go through that cold water, which gets worse the further/higher up you are away from it.
Maybe try to find a way to not entirely waste it - like put some of that into a water kettle to be boiled for a hot drink? I enjoy such thoughts but do as you please ofc.
I am no plumber, just thought this might be interesting to know:-). I am 10,001% certain that someone will correct me here if I have said anything inaccurate. 😂
You’re correct, but I just want to point out that it isn’t advisable to drink or cook with water that comes from your hot water tank. Hot water can (and usually will) corrode metal parts from your tank and plumbing and can be contaminated by all sorts of nasty stuff that won’t go away even if you boil the water first.
https://www.denverwater.org/tap/psa-dont-drink-or-cook-with-hot-water-from-the-tap?size=n_21_n
If you look it up on youtube, you can see for yourself the insane amount of crap that builds up inside a hot water tank over time. https://youtu.be/kAzKts6Wp1Q?si=UMPzHcIoSRdSgJ4g&t=88
Why does that happen? Is the pipe to the bathroom wider than the kitchen sink?
In my case it’s because the last several owners of this house were idiots that cheaped out on everything and thought they knew better than the professionals do… my plumbing is a wonderful variety of crap soldered to different crap that I think was partially salvaged from the Titanic or something.
And since I’m renting, I have no ambition to rip anything out and fix it properly unless it breaks.
Same here. Not only takes forever to get warm, takes another minute or 2 to steam. Then my bathroom sink is fine, also farther away from the hot water heater. This is in apartments that were built less than 10 years ago. Part of me thinks it could be the valve or pipe type or something.
It’s literally the opposite in my place. The cold spigot will release 90F water when it’s 60F outside. The hot spigot is even hotter.
