Hot Water Heater Timer & Circulating Pump

When we built our house, we met our contractors by word of mouth. We went to one supply store, and then they’d ask if we had a tile guy. Then they’d recommend someone. It was a great way to meet dependable contractors that other contractors liked to work with. Because we had different framing(ICF), we let our framer recommend an electrician that was familiar with our framing type. When we went to a local plumbing shop to shop fixtures, he recommended some contractors and they were all great! He wasn’t the one that recommended our plumber, but we LOVED our plumber. He was honest and knew his stuff. We even used him at my mom’s townhouse when I broke her outdoor hose bibb after trying to use it in cold weather. 

One feature that our plumber and the fixture salesman recommended was how to heat our hot water for the entire house with one heater! Our house is rather large and we heat the water with one tankless hot water heater! We keep our tankless Rinai water heater in Mr. JCrew’s closet. We built the alcove on purpose in the design. We didn’t want it exposed to the outdoor elements and didn’t want it so far away in the garage either.

We’ve never had a tankless water heater, and I was unfamiliar with how one works. You don’t have a tank of hot water waiting on you when you want it, so when you turn on a fixture, it sends a signal to the tankless hot water heater to send hot water… but it’s not instant! You have to waste water leaving the fixture on to keep the signal going so that it knows to heat the hot water. Once it’s on, and you’re filling your bath tub and taking your shower, the hot water keeps coming. 

The recommendation that we went with was an add on to the hot water heater. There were actually two add-ons. First was a circulating pump.

This was what allowed us to use one tankless hotwater heater for a large house. It pumps hot water to each fixture in the house at a 30 minute intervals. This allows you to have instant hot water on demand.

The second add-on was a timer for the circulating pump and tankless heater. This prevents the heater to be on constantly. 

We set the timer to circulate hot water to all features at peak times when we would want it. (Morning showers, noon dish washing, evening baths, etc) During that time that the timer is on, the heater is circulating hot water to each fixture in the house.

During the off times, you can still get hot water. If you know you're going to need hot water not at a designated time, you can hit "override" on the timer and get hot water. If you don't hit the button, you can still get hot water, but you have to let that fixture run for a few minutes to send the signal to the heater (water waster). 

This add-on is so nice! When we first moved in, we didn’t have it set up properly and I got so frustrated waiting for hot water to fill up a cup so that we could grow our capsules!

I wasted so much water trying to get water hot enough, that I might as well have put the cup in the microwave to get the hot water. 

But this timer means we can turn on the shower and jump in immediately! Mr. JCrew is still in the habit of turning the shower on and brushing his teeth while he waits for the water to heat up, but he doesn’t have to! Less water wasted!

I’ve now become very spoiled with this timer. Never knew it existed and now can’t live without it!

French Drains

I kept busy 2016 winter with projects inside, but my gardener heart was ready to be outside again. I was eager to see what this season would bring and it didn't disappoint. Right after we moved in we realized we had water issues. It was Christmas of 2015 when it poured all day and we saw how bad our yard flooded.

I actually cried. Part of it was due to pregnancy hormones, but I saw a lot of hard work being washed away. There were then several rains in the Spring that kept flooding our yard.

I knew the side of the house closest to our nearest neighbor stayed wet during construction, so we made sure the contractors that graded our lot, installed the sprinklers and laid the grass, also put in a French drain to take the water away from that area between our houses.

But the rest of the house downspouts, I attached tubing that ran through the flowerbed and released the water into the grass. At each downspout I put rocks to help, and be pretty. I got this idea from another house in our neighborhood.

After the Christmas "flood" we never had a bad rainfall like that. But I noticed my plants were not growing. Some would have yellow leaves and some plants were losing their leaves completely. I started investigating and realized the plants were sitting in water! The water table in our area is high, and if I could do things all over again, I would not dig a single hole. I would have placed the plants on top of the clay and poured dirt around them. Then add mulch. This would create a berm-type of flowerbed, but it would help water not sit at the base of the plant and cause root-rot.

We also had issues with the driveway puddling. The driveway had a ridge meant to take the water to the sides, but the amount of water that came from the large driveway was way too much for the yard.

And the other issue was that each time it poured, I was having to rake mulch back into my flowerbeds.

I could put up a liner for the flowerbeds to keep the mulch in, but that also meant I would be keeping the water in the flowerbeds and continue to drown my plants. I decided to add lots and lots more french drains to control the water runoff. Each downspout on the north side of the house got attached to a drain and the drain ran out to the street. The other downspouts on the South side of the house, just release into the land next to us.

Now, I thought we agreed on the outlet being on the curb, but somehow communication failed and we got a pop-up drain in the grass. This worked fine for a while and the water flowed across the sidewalk and into the street. However, the grass area around the pop-up never dried out. This grass stayed green and lush, but I had one issue... Every time we mowed, the mower would sink in the mushy ground and leave tracks.At the very beginning of Spring, we had this issue fixed. We removed the pop up drains and had the pipe extended to the street curb.

We added drains to either side of the driveway to help with the water runoff there.

It has worked just as it should and we no longer have flooding in the driveway.

If I were to do one thing over regarding these French Drains, I would have used large PVC pipe to connect all the downspouts. I noticed a house in our neighborhood do that.

I just used the flexible piping from each downspout. Then when we added French drains, they connect my tubing to their tubing and ran it through the yard.

After the French Drains were installed I felt I could tackle the flowerbeds. I did an experimental section on the North side and the NorthEast flowerbeds. I dug up every single plant, filled the existing hole with drainage rock, put the plant on top of the rock and poured dirt around the plant. I had a lot of mounds of dirt, so I filled the space with mulch and also put mulch on top of the new mounds. Mulch is cheaper than the good dirt.

It was mid-summer when I did this, but I quickly noticed plants growing and looking healthier! My hydrangeas weren't growing at all, but they doubled in size once I replanted them correctly. After this success, I moved on to redoing every flowerbed. It was a lot of work, but so worth it. I spread it out over time. One section at a time. I got tired of the constant trips to the far away Lowes for mulch, fitting all I could in the car, that I decided to wait and place one large order and have it delivered. Lowes had 3 cubic feet bags for the lowest price. Most mulch bags are only 2 cubic feet. And Lowes charges one flat shipping fee that was worth it for the amount of mulch we needed. And we chose bags of mulch vs the truckload that we did last time because it saved us on labor. A truckload meant you were shoveling into the wheelbarrow and dumping. With bags, I could pile four bags in the wheel barrow, dump it wherever and go back for more. Mr. JCrew and I had a rhythm. He'd transport the bags and I would open them and spread them.

Early 2017

Mid 2017

I wish I had taken a picture of our pallets of mulch, but we ordered 400 bags that came on 9 pallets! It took up a lot of the driveway and were piled 15 feet high. I told Mr. JCrew the mulch was my Christmas present. And for Thanksgiving, we used our time off to spread the mulch. I felt so strong after all that work. Mr. JCrew and I joke about making a workout video called, "Garden Body by Lindsay." All I do is play in my yard and I build muscle. :)

I got a lot of mulch because of the berm-style flowerbeds we had just created. The beds are over 8 inches tall with mulch. This helps the water ricochet off the sides of the flowerbeds and also cuts down on the weeds.

I was sooo ready for Spring to get here and I can really see progress in the yard. It was too late in the season last year to see results. But with all the rain this Winter and Spring, my mind has been at ease knowing the plants are not getting too much water.

I put sand down on all the lines where the French Drains were added, but I learned that I used the wrong kind of sand (Play Sand). That causes compaction. I then used Scott's Lawn Soil over the bare areas. I then fertilized the yard and watered and by mid-June, the grass has almost completely filled the gaps. Yay!

Spring 2017

I did read a book AFTER we had performed this work, that I wish I had read before we built the house. I read about installing a reservoir tank underneath your house. I actually probably would have used the land next to our house to install. But the tank collects all the water runoff from the house when it rains. There is so much water that I see going into our street drain that I could put to use. It's like one huge rain barrel. Live and learn. There are up sides and downsides to rain barrels.

Below is a picture of a rain barrel that is installed under a porch. A builder we had interviewed early on was a green builder and he recently installed this rain barrel. Great idea!

I will say, it is a lot of fun to look back at pictures from 1-year ago and see how far we've come. It's humbling to see where we started and what we've got now. It has definitely been a labor of love. Soon, I will have to show current pictures. Raising the beds has really changed how the yard looks and the plants are performing so much better!

Month 3 Metrics

We have actually had two "draws" in the last month to add to our performing metrics. Draws are invoices from the general contractor to pay bills. Ours is set up a little differently since we are acting as our own GC (kinda). Usually a GC has an account with companies and they have 30 days to pay the bills. We just pay the bills once the invoice is delivered.

The first draw of month three was to cover the remaining lumber we used to complete framing and the windows and doors. The remaining lumber came in the same week as our last draw, but the company gave us 30-days to pay. The windows we paid upon delivery, and the doors as well.

The next draw was for the rough-ins. We paid both the plumber and the electrician 60% of their total quote for passing their inspections. The plumber's quote came in slightly higher because we had him add two things; (He ran the dryer vents and we added a radon venting system.) I was okay with that.

With the plumber, we had to order the tubs and some trim kits for the drains in the tubs/showers. We also went ahead and had our plumber install the water heater we bought. I misread that the plumber needed faucets. I was confused, because I knew they wouldn't be installed until the counters were in, but I bought them anyway. That was a purchase that happened sooner than it needed to, but I tracked it. 

The electrician came in under his budget. I knew he might have quoted high. Our general contractor added a buffer line for electrical in his budget. It was his experience that homeowners overrun in electrical the most. Our electrician quoted us by outlets, switches, lights, etc. I really liked seeing it broken down by line-item. Most companies just gave me a flat quote, and told me how many cable outlets that included.

I keep my earned value sheet but I also "balance my check-book." Up until April 1st, we were able to use the money we put down to pay our bills. I had to balance the books to know when we were about to run out and when I needed to ask the bank for money from our loan. This has been a huge help! We were able to make it through those rain delays and not pay interest on money borrowed. Now, when I receive an invoice from a contractor, I ask the bank for a deposit (from our construction loan). They verify the total with what the bank's inspector thinks of the value we have so far. The inspector comes out twice a week.

Overall, we are in good shape. The rough-ins completed on schedule, so it appears we have gotten ourselves back on track. Budget wise, we are still good. We're still over budget a little from the last month, but there are some areas that can get us back down. It's now all cosmetic and our choices really affect the price.

Plumbing Rough In

The plumber came out on Monday, the 30th and started getting the rough-in complete for plumbing. It took him and his small team 5 days to complete the plumbing for the entire house.

The first thing they did was run pipes from the first floor to the roof for what they call plumbing vents.

He had to be very creative and precise with placement of vents. You cannot legally drill through LVL beams and we have several of those.

And each fixture has to have a vent. I researched up on those here. It makes a pipe come out of the roof, but you put them on the back side, so you don't see from the street.

We'll have the roofer come put lead boots over them. You can paint them, but we've seen on our last house, how the paint fades.

The tubs/shower combos were delivered on Monday and installed. Mom has her special extra large tub.

We will soon cover the tubs and place a note that says, "Do not use this tub as a trash can." We will place a trashcan near by for contractors to use.

The master tub is not yet installed. We will wait to install it after drywall is hung. This ensures nothing falls in/on it and causes it to break.

And the tankless water heater was installed.

We installed it on an exterior wall, but the inspector wanted us to move it. So, we did.The reason why was because of ease/difficulty reaching the unit for maintenance/repairs.

We went back and forth on picking a location for the water heater. Most people place them on the exterior of the home. With our ICF walls, we couldn't make a cavity for it. It would possibly stick out further than normal. We decided to place it on the inside. It is gas, and the HVAC guys will have to drill a hole to vent it outside.

We will have ONE for the whole house. We bought a circulating pump that will be on a timer. This allows us to run the whole house on one unit instead of two. We will put the timer set for 5AM and it will pump hot water to every fixture in the house. We can set it for the most common shower times to ensure instant hot water.

The plumbing crew was not on site Friday or Saturday, but they came back Monday, the 6th, and finished running the water lines.

And they installed the hose bibs!

The washer lines were completed.

And the shower "heads" were put in place.

I have learned a lot in this whole process, and it's the main reason I write about it. The plumber created a "make-shift" shower pan in our Master Bath. I text him a picture and noted it was the wrong size. He was aware and let me know he did it on purpose. All he had to prove for inspection, was that it held water. But he let me know, that it was an item the tile installer would warranty. In this case, he purposefully built it wrong so that the tile installer has to take the misplaced wood piece and put it in the correct spot. There would be now way for the tile installer to blame the plumber for his job if something went wrong.

We passed inspection Tuesday morning, and our plumber moved on to his next task. He'll be back when when it's time to install the fixtures (faucets and toilets).