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!

Sprinkler System Control

I’m going to get a little geeky here, but adding technology to nature is like dessert for me! It’s so good!

There is always going to be something we wish we could go back and fix. Most things you can, but you have to decide its worth. I thought I knew what I was doing and planning ahead with my landscape, but I have learned I could have gone further and want to share with you!

I shared my landscape plan with my sprinkler installer when we built the house and I put my trust in his expertise. But I should have known I should have been more involved with the details. I assumed if I identified trees/shrubs/lawn the sprinkler guy would create a custom sprinkler system to accommodate the different requirements. We got a really good system, but I recently learned how custom it can really get!

 

Our Sprinkler controller was nothing special. We have 5 zones and our controller could be set up to have multiple start times to a zone. I used this to water my lawn once at 1AM and then again at 3AM. You need to water heavy but don’t want to waste water running off because the ground cannot absorb any more water. So if you water some, then let it soak, you can water again and it will absorb it all.

I mention 1AM, because I learned a LONG time ago not to water at night (5PM-1AM). This promotes fungus as water sits too long before the sun dries it up off the plant. Watering during the heat of the afternoon is wasteful. There is usually wind, and the hot air dries up the water too fast before the roots get any of it. I also like for my sprinkler system to be done watering before the early walkers in the neighborhood are out and have to dodge all the sprinkler systems going off while on their morning walk.

I change my sprinkler system during the Spring, Summer and Fall with frequency, but I also watched the weather regularly to make sure I didn’t’ water at the same time as a storm or right after a huge amount of rainfall collected. This manual observing and changing got me thinking of how to be smarter. For my birthday, I bought a new controller. This controller is so sweet!

It’s called Rachio. It does all the things I was doing manually and makes me look like a master gardener! It has wi-fi connection to get the latest weather. It rearranges the water schedule for you!

The setup is a little intensive if you really want to make it custom. Installation is quick and easy. You download the app to your phone and control it from there. You set up your zones with all kinds of information and it does the rest. This is where I realize how custom a sprinkler system can be. 

Our system knows Zones 1,2 and 4 are for our lawn. They run more often than Zones 3 and 5 that are the flowerbeds. 

I told it that the root depth of the flowerbeds is 15 inches, so it calculates the temperature and how long it takes to dry out before it needs to water again. (You can control the percentage you will allow to dry out). But this doesn’t stop it from watering the lawn that has shorter roots and needs to be watered more often.

I’ve also witnessed where the weather was forecast to rain, but it didn’t, so it started a cycle to make up for the rain that it anticipated.

Where I realize how custom it could be is that it can control drip lines, perennials, annuals, shrubs and lawn. There are different water frequencies for each of these. I mix annuals, perennials and shrubs in my flowerbeds. I wish I would have set up zones for perennials and annuals. Maybe down the road I will. 

And it calculates the time for you! I ask that it always be complete by sunrise. So no matter what it is watering, it will start accordingly to make sure it is complete by sunrise. You can also control the day. Some people have set water days and you can tell it to be smart, but only use those days. I don’t have any restrictions other than not to water on Friday when our lawn mower comes. It takes all that into consideration.

It will also adjust for seasons. It knows July/August are the hottest and adjusts, but I don’t have to worry about slowing it down or ramping it up. September and October I will see the amount of schedule waterings go down. Adjusting the frequency was a pain on my old controller.

Since the controller is run by an app on your phone, I have notifications set to alert me when the sprinkler system was in use. I usually wake up to these messages.

Really really really cool product! It can act like my old controller, but when it has so much potential to be custom, let it do its thing and sit back and enjoy!!