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

[scott.hall at comcast.net]

I'm thinking that will be the issue I have. in florida it's slab-on-grade and my house is single story, which is part of the reason for the loop--a large single story house is going to have at least one fixture a good long wait from the heater. 

what's 'significant', phil? I'm planning to run the loop in the attic, as far above the heater tank as I can, and have 'drops' to the individual sinks, much like a compressed air line setup. I figure the water in the drops will be cool, but that's six or seven feet of pipe vs. 60 or 70 feet in some places. 

I also figure I'll have to put the low (cold) part of the loop just a foot or two below the hot part, or else figure out how to commandeer the existing plumbing in the slab to be the return line. I'm going to try that first, but since a lot of the fixtures will move that probalby won't work. 

scott 


----- Original Message ----- 
From: pethier at comcast.net 
To: "scott hall" <scott.hall at comcast.net> 
Cc: shop-talk at autox.team.net 
Sent: Monday, April 6, 2009 10:46:20 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: Re: [Shop-talk] water heaters and hot water loops? 

----- "scott hall" <scott.hall at comcast.net> wrote: 

> now I just have to figure out if a passive loop system really works. 

Passive loop systems really work, providing that the sink is significantly higher than the water heater. 

My pipe-fitter father put this system in the house he had built in 1963. I just sold the house in November, and I could walk into the house after being gone for a day or two and get hot water in any of the sinks right away. I think about that sometimes while waiting for hot water in my own house.