I stayed in a Premier Inn at the weekend and I was amazed to find the hot water came out of the tap instantly, with no cold water first. Do they use a different plumbing system to the usual domestic arrangement? Scott
Usually a constantly circulating hot supply, or maybe there's enough guests running a bath and housekeeping washing towels/crockery to prevent cold "legs"?
Yes. ;-)
At a guess I would suspect that they have an insulated flow and return system with a circulator pump to keep the hot pipes primed with hot water.
Tim
Dunno for sure, but with very well insulated pipes, there will be enough use of the HW on a regular basis to keep the pipes hot.
Also often used in hospitals, to prevent any cooling in the pipes which might give rise to legionella.
Owain
Its a circulation loop. You have stored hot water, and you pump water from the top of the store round a circuit that returns to a little lower in the store. All the taps etc are then teed off the loop. The whole loop is insulated, a often a timer is employed to run the loop periodically.
Some of the better domestic systems are also equipped to do it.
I once stopped over in a Ibis, could have been Dartford.......... not sure. Shithole is Dartford as is all of the south. There was no cold water from the taps in my room! Only hot. The receptionist more or less told me that I was making it up until I told her to go take a look. Them I got the apology and a leg over if I wanted it. I accepted the apology, but declined the leg over with a southerner. Northerners have standards.
'S a requirement in Gemrna new builds and refurbishments, if more than X apartments. Preventing Legionella is one reason.
Also, hot water is billed separately, if there are separate users. Some billing mechanisms measure the energy of the hot water, i.e. temperature and flow rate, and are correspondingly expensive. So it's easier to circulate the hot water, and use a cheap water volume meter, and assume that all taps receive the water at the same temperature and instantaneously.
And lo, unintended consequences strike: even though this pipework is insulated, the heat from the hot flow and circulation return can be enough to heat the usually-nearby cold pipework enough for legionella in the cold supply to be a problem....
Thomas Prufer
Scott submitted this idea :
Usually a ring or loop of pipe, where the loop passes many / most of the outlets, the hot water is constantly circulated by a pump around the loop. This system is not common in the home, because it is wasteful of heat, unless a lot of hot water is needed regularly, but it is less wasteful of water.
Thomas Prufer posted
No case of legionella has ever been reported in a domestic water supply, whether hot or cold. Clearly the system works well.
I have seen this done in a domestic uk installation. An expensive new system with circulating HW so that Hot was available instantly anywhere in the house. Unfortunately the cold tap also produced hot water instantly anywhere in the house and you had to run half a gallon of hot away before you could get any cold water. TW
You're wrong.
i.e.
or
"Risk factors for domestic acquisition of legionnaires disease. Ohio legionnaires Disease Group."
Thomas Prufer
Not true.
- Legionella spp. were detected in 33 (22.6%) and Pseudomonas spp. in 56 (3
8.4%) of 146 samples.- The reported frequency of pneumonia symptoms was double among persons liv ing in the legionellae-positive homes compared to those living in legionell ae-free buildings
- In previous studies in Finland and Germany, the occurrence of legionellae was similar (30% and 26%, respectively) as well as the contaminating conce ntration
- system and building characteristics were the main predictors for Legionel la in domestic hot water. Thus, residing at higher floors of large building s with many apartments and with older, centralized water heating systems in creased the risk for Legionella contamination compared to living in apartme nts with independent water heater systems and a short distance from the sam pling point to the hot water distribution site.
- the prevalence of anti-Legionella antibodies was twice as high in persons in homes with legionellae as in those persons whose homes did not have leg ionellae The antibodies were most likely the result of asymptomatic infecti ons caused by exposure in their home water supply, as no cases of pneumonia in the exposed population were reported
- Most cases of sporadic legionellosis are not reported to health authoriti es in Italy as well as in other countries
Legionella Infection Risk from Domestic Hot Water.
- plumbing systems in private houses that provided hot water from instantan eous water heaters were free of Legionella compared with a prevalence of 12 % in houses with storage tanks and recirculating hot water
- More than 50% of all houses using district heating systems were colonized by Legionella.
Occurrence of Legionella in hot water systems of single-family residences in suburbs of two German cities with special reference to solar and district heating
Owain
This can be achieved by circulating hot water past the tap. The downside is heat loss from the DGHW circuit when idle.
In a hotel where probably heating is on most of the year, this may not be an issue.
Does using a water softener change the situation?
I can't quite work out whether you are trying to suggest that it is normal for hotels to have heating on most of the year in all climates.
or were just restricting your comment to those places where "everybody" has their heating on most of the year
IME most of the UK does not come into that latter category (the northernmost PI would seem to be Edinburg/Glasgow)
° Last autumn I was involved in running an exhibition in London hotel's conference facilities. I had the greatest of difficulty in persuading the porter that we did not want the thermostats set to 24° .
Where on earth is 'all climates' mentioned?
Premier inn are a UK only siubsidiary of Whitbread
And its normal to run hotel heating in the UK all year round.
If only for towel rails.
quite a lot I've stayed in have electrically heated towel rails,
Generally speaking, the first the we do on arrival in a hotel room is switch the heating off.
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