need hot water FAST

[PV]

Hello,

I bought a newly built house 3 years ago. At that time, I asked the builder why it took so long, 3-4 minutes, before hot water came out of the faucets when you first turned them on. He said that was the standard wait.

I'm annoyed now that I have to wait so long for the hot water to come out. The temperature of the water is fine and I have no problems with running out of hot water. I want to know if there is something I can install/replace to make the hot water get to the faucet quicker, in 1 minute instead of 5 minutes. And I have this wait with all of my faucets, kitchen, shower and bathrooms.

Thanks for your assistance!

[Grim]

Plumbing is not my area, but it sounds like you do not have a hot water loop. A hot water loop is when you run a pipe from the farthest point in the house back to the hot water heater. It's a lot easier to have this pipe installed when the house is currently under construction. As to what you can do about putting one in, I myself would have to call a plumber.

Grim

[Steve]

It sounds like your water heater is located a long distance from each of the fixtures.. However, even in and extreme situation in an average home, anything longer than 30 sec. it too much (sometimes it seems like 5 min. when your standing there).

Try timing it and see if you haven't exagerated the wait time.

If in fact it is taking several minutes then you have a problem with water flow rate.. Most residence are piped with 1/2" OD pvc or 3/8" ID copper tubing.. Either way the cross section area is going to be about 3/8".. The other factor would be the water pressure. Around 50 lb is standard but in some home that could be as low as 30.

I just did a test of my furthest bath room, about 40 ft of 1/2" pipe run from the waterheater.. It took 35 sec. to get warm water, 45 sec. to get hot and about 55 till it was extremely hot.. My water heater is set at about 150 deg.F.

Some might recommend insulating pipes but that only prevents the pipes from cooling off after you have run the hot water into them. Does nothing to shorten your time when the pipe are already cold (30 min. after the last hot water demand).

Move the hot water heater closer to the main demand.. Have knowledgeable plumer put in a hot water recirculating pump. This is used in some commercial installations to keep the hot water at the tap at all times.. This method cost you money because of the pump running periodically and for reheating the water as it cools and is returned to the water heater..

The last but most common solution is the 'on demand' water heater in each bathroom.. These have no tank and heat the water as you need it.. but like I say, you will have to have one for each bath and maybe the kitchen.. These would be efficient, especially if you supply them from the existing hot water line and leave your regular hot water heater on.. Once the hot water from the regular heater get to the 'on demand' heater the electric element will turn off..

Steve (retired steam fitter/pipe fitter)

[Bruce]

Is it cold where you're at? It is not possible to keep the water hot when it is inside the pipes. You're dealing with the time it takes to remove the cold water from the pipe, heat the pipe, and then come out the faucet.

This time should get longer the farther you are away from the water heater. The only way I know to change it is to install an instant hot water heater at the source and I doubt you want to do that.

I've never head of a hot water loop but for it to do any good, each plumbing run would have to have one and it would require a pump to run continuously.

[PJx]

Strange you asked. I was up in my attic a couple of hours yesterday because I had exactly the same problem. I bought some thick foam 3/4 inch copper pipe insulation and insulated my pipes from the water heater to the end of the main trunk. Costs about $30.

But you probably don't have water pipes in your attic like I do. In that case you are pretty much out of luck.

On your next new house, have the hot water lines wrapped in 2 to 3 inch insulation and wrapped in heavy plastic before you bury them.

PJ

[pb]

This might be a consequence of running 3/4 feeds, as many new houses have. Thus, more standing water has to be replaced before the hot water shows up. I replaced my hot water lines with 3/8 flex, and now get hot water after 20 oz. of draw, with no appreciable lessening of volume. But my runs are short.

pb

[j j]

that's bullshit. if you have a tank then it's full of hot water and the only time you need to wait is the time it takes for water to each the faucet from the tank, which is 10 or 20 seconds, not 4 minutes. If you have a tankless water heater, I don't know how long you wait but I doubt people would use those if waiting 4 minutes for hot water with the faucet running would be the norm.

[SQLit]

Insulate all of the hot water pipes that you can get to. Homedepot sells a hot water pump that mounts under the sink that pulls hot water and pushes the cold back into the cold water pipe, ~$150.00. I think. I have one. Place the pump at the farthest away from the water heater. All of my lines are underground and the water takes a while to get warm. With the pump I hit the switch brush my teeth and hot water is waiting for me. I even have it on a timer that is ready for me in the mornings before I go to work.

[Joseph Meehan]

Let me add one more to the list. With an electric heater, one dead element can cause some strange results. With either electric or gas a bad dip tube or mis plumbed (incoming water connected to the hot (outlet) and outgoing water connected to the cold water supply can cause such problems.

Five minutes, if it is really that long, would indicate a long string of odd situations, like extra large supply lines, cold area, heavy heat sink pipe material and very long runs from the heater to the outlet.

Do all the sinks tubs etc in you home have the same problem?

What kind of hot water heater do you have? Integrated with you home heat, electric, gas, oil, no-tank?

[Stacey]

You can add a recirculating pump that constantly moves hot water through the hto water lines. I beleive though that this is a job for a plumber.

[Jeff Wisnia]

Quite common to see them used where needed in better quality construction.

Not necessarily. Some of them run by gravity ("thermosyphon"). Cold water is heavier than hot. They work the same as the old "gravity" hydronic heating systes.

Happy New Year,

Jeff

[Bruce]

Maybe more common up north. I'm in Texas and I have never seen them, even in "better quality construction."

Interesting but I can't imagine it moving very quickly. And in Texas, the hot water heater is in the attic so it ain't gonna move uphill.

[Steve]

For a thermosyphon to work the water heater needs to be lower than the fixtures and that usually requires the water heater to be in the basement. Even then the syphon won't work if there is any horizontal runs or dips..

I have worked on hot water heating systems, as a steamfitter, that were actually single pipe systems. The hot water rises up the pipe and the cold water goes down as. Actually the water never really travels or circulates. The BTUs of heat migrate up through the column of water.. These primative system are generally very simple with the hot water boiler at the bottom of a column (pipe) in the basement and each hot water radiator is tee'ed off at each floor level of the house.. I haven't seen one of these sytems for 50 years. Sorry for the 'flash-back'.

Steve

[RB]

Texas is a case unto itself. Where else will you find water heaters and the associated cold water supply lines running in unheated attic crawl spaces? Frequently without even a pan under the hot water heater. I can recall seeing water pouring from the front door of homes in the Dallas area a few years back when a cold snap hit at Christmas, power went out and folks were away visiting relatives. All was well until things thawed out. Much of Texas doesn't know what quality construction is.

RB

Bruce wrote:

[RB]

Steve,

The water does move, albeit slowly. I had a problem with long delays in getting hot water to my fixtures. My supply line (because I have a 40 to 60 psi well supplied system) is a 1" dia copper pipe so I needed to dump about 6 gallons to move hot water from the water heater to the most distant bathroom. A few years ago I ran a 1/2" return line at basement ceiling height the length of my basement from that most distant bathroom back to the water heater, a distance of about 150 ft. I teed the return into the water heater behind the drain valve giving me an elevation difference of 9 to 10 ft, insulated the supply and return lines and hot water is now quickly available.

Recall that Henry Ford was able to cool his Model T quite well with a thermosyphon and the height difference there is only about a foot.

RB

Steve wrote:

[PV]

I've timed it. For each faucet, it takes 3-4 minutes before the water that comes out is warm. It is an excruciating long time to wait for warm water, especially now that it is winter. In the summer, I didn't mind washing my hands in cold water.

I'm in NC, my hot water heater uses gas and is located in the attic of my 2-story house, not integrated. The pipes for the first floor bathroom and kitchen run along the top of the cold crawl space under the house. It has been a while since I was in the crawl space but I think the piping I saw was clear plastic, not copper. But still, even the 2nd floor bathroom faucets take the same amount of time before warm water comes out.

I just want to know what I can do differently the next time I have a builder build me a house. I am satisfied with everything the builder did when building my home except for this one nagging problem.

[Bruce]

Imagine that. The expert said only Texas does that.

[Michael Baugh]

Last house I plumbed for myself, I used 1/4" copper lines from the water heater to the individual fixtures. It was no big deal, since there were only three, but the kitchen was far enough away that it would have taken a LONG time to get hot water. Sounds like you're encountering that sort of thing. The lines ran in the basement, and obviously had plenty of opportunity to cool down.

Later, when I had to rerun that kitchen line for a remodeling project, I was very careful to put a gentle but steady upward slope to it as it went towards the kitchen. that way, the warm water was presented to the fixture.

We never had to wait for hot water at the fixture, and I don't know which path made the difference, but I certainly remind you that the bigger the delivery line, the longer it takes to empty its contents.

[Joseph Meehan]

I think your problem is with the heater, not the distribution system.

"It has been a while since I was in the crawl space but I > think the piping I saw was clear plastic, not copper."

I have never heard of clear plastic being approved for domestic hot water, but I guess it is possible. It is used for hot water heat supply (well sort of clear). Maybe your memory is not too clear from when you saw it.

I suggest getting a plumber out to check it. It should be correctable, and I am going to guess it is not going to cost all that much.

Frankly in your area, I don't think I would want any plumbing going through a non-heated part of my home, nor would I want my hot water heater in an area not easily assessable.

[Jeff Wisnia]

How about trying this check and telling us the results:

Tomorrow morning, before anyone opens a hot water faucet in the house, clamber up to where the hot water heater is and grab the outlet pipe a couple of feet from the heater.

Then yell down to SWMBO to open a hot water tap somewhere and then see how the pipe feels.

If it was warm and cools down, then there's a problem with the heater.

Might be that the installer screwed up and plumbed the inlet and outlet reversed so it's feeding the water out through the dip tube from the bottom of the tank where the cooler water sits, instead of from the top, where the heated water rises to. That's not hard to do if you don't pay attention to the "Hot and Cold" markings on the tank.

If the pipe gets hot right away and stays hot for the several minutes it takes for the water at the tap to get hot, then as most of the others have said, it's a piping length/volume problem, best solved by using one of those motorized recirculating pmp thingies and some additional piping, or selling the house. (Ducking...)

Happy New Year,

-- Jeff Wisnia (W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)

"If you can keep smiling when things go wrong, you've thought of someone to place the blame on."