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!