[Shop-talk] water heaters and hot water loops?

[scott.hall at comcast.net]

well...I'm not doing that *exact* thing, but I'm pretty sure understanding what he's doing will help me with what I'm doing. 

I'd like to put a passive loop in, and I'd like to use a solar roof unit to heat the water in an electric water heater with the bottom element unplugged. that will connect to the passive loop. 

branching off that passive (and very well insulated loop) will be a instant heater. or several, actually. one for the master bath, and one or more for the other bathrooms and kitchen. I'm just trying to get the idea of the post-instant heater plumbing down. I really don't understand what the guy is doing in that article. I understand the concepts and the problems he's trying to solve, I mean I literally don't get how to plumb it. for example, looking at my electric heater, I have an 'in' and an 'out'. his schematic seems to have three ports and they're not in/out specific, apparently. 

why am I doing this? mostly because I can and I think it'd be cool to have cheap (operationally, not installation cost) instant hot water, and more importantly, because it'd make my wife happy. the goal is to never run out of hot water for what it's costing us to heat the water now or less. also because the shower fixture she's picked out for the master bath will have a one inch (each) supply for hot and cold water. I'm not kidding. one inch in for hot and cold, each. it feeds six individual fixtures and it controlled by something that resembles an overgrown i-pod. 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Randall" <tr3driver at ca.rr.com> 
To: shop-talk at autox.team.net 
Sent: Monday, April 6, 2009 7:06:33 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: Re: [Shop-talk] water heaters and hot water loops? 

Seems like a bunch of money & complication; all based on the concept that 
that small tank-type heater plus a tankless heater & pump all lose less heat 
to the environment than just a larger tank-type heater would. A $50 water 
heater blanket might work just as well.