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If you have a tankless water heater, and have to run the tap for a really long while to get hot water, look into timed recirculating pumps. It'll save you a ton of money and make you kick yourself for not doing it sooner.
That sounds like a tank with extra steps.
I looked up what that is,
While that sounds great from an end point perspective - my water would be hot straight from the tap - this would necessitate keeping the water in the pipes hot 24/7 so that it'd be ready at a moments notice at any time.
That would be SOOO much more expensive! Just imagine! So much energy/money lost keeping some pipes hot for the few times a day you need to use the hot tap.
Sounds like a great system for places like a hospital where on demand, correctly heated water throughout the building complex is a must, but those places have £££ to burn.
I do agree this is a problem though, I've sometimes wondered if there's an instant electric heating system one can install under the sink (I know these exist), but rather than only heating water that way (which would use electricity and be WAY more expensive than the gas boiler), if it heated the water only when needed - and when it detects the incoming water is hot (as the boiler's caught up) it can stop heating the water itself, you know?
A little initial heat burst for the first 15 seconds basically until the boiler catches up, that'd be great and not too big of an additional cost to run :-D
The secret to keeping water hot is minimising surface area and, of course, insulation. If you want instant hot water you can actually buy electric hot water tanks with, say, 10-15L capacities that go under the sink so the hot water only needs to travel the 50cm or so. Very cheap and much more simple than instant heaters.
Many pumps come with built-in timers so you can turn them off when sleeping. You can also connect them to smarthome switches and set a routine to turn them on and off only when needed or via remote apps, wireless switches, or voice control (Alexa, turn pump on.)
We found the cost savings to be non-trivial. Main reason I put one in was because we had a teenager who started the shower running, then went away and got distracted. This solved the problem. And with a smarthome controller, it also reduced costs.
Also, those under-sink instant heaters do exist, but they're only good for a single faucet. They won't work with showers and baths.
Lots have motion sensors you install so when you walk in the room it starts.
Amazing quality of life upgrade. It feels like a million bucks to have hot water instantly. However, when I looked into this for my home it seemed like it saves water at the increased energy expense of heating your pipes, right? For me it would end up costing more than living without it.
Do I have this wrong?
That's why I put 'timed' in there. You can program when they shut off so it just goes back to the way it was before. Like when sleeping or out of the house.
A more fine-grain solution is to get a non-timer (cheaper) version of the pump, and one of those Alexa, Google, or Homekit compatible power switches, then not only can you set the time through a smart home routine, but can override them whenever walking out or coming back.
If using a traditional water heater, you're heating the whole tank all the time. And with a tankless but no pump, you're running gallons of clean water down the drain, waiting for it to get warm. It's all a tradeoff, but this, at least, only heats the water circulating inside your pipes and only during the hours you set.