New England B.S. Thread

My hot water comes off my boiler. The heat is off but I'm still burning K1

I'm seriously considering installing an on-demand water heater for the domestic water and converting the boiler to a cold-start unit for the heat.

 

That's sort of counter productive...

Morning all

 

Ya, like 3/4 of a tank.

Very tue

Mine too, we have a furnace/ tankless hot water heater. Saves electricity, but i'm not convinced of an overall savings. When you haven't used the hot water in a while it can take a long to to flush the cool water out of the pipes and get the hot water to the shower head/ sink etc..

That's what I want too. From my research it's the only good solution to the hot water taking forever sometimes. Then if the t-stat tells the furnace it needs to heat one of the floors, the hot water temp goes down substantially. Annoying.

 

That's weird. I actually have better water temperature when the boiler's heating a room and I'm taking a shower.

 

Ya, not sure what's up with it. They've been out multiple times to look at it. I also suspect a shitty insulating job, if any in the hot water tube corridors. I've found other area's where the builders did s half ass job insulating, and I suspect this is also one of them. I say this because in the kitchen which is on the first floor if you open any of the cabinets that are under the sink or immediatly adjacent to it it's freezing. You can feel the cold air coming up the holes where the hot/ cold lines enter cabinets for the sink

 

That shouldn't happen. If you have one boiler that heats the domestic hot water and the heating pipes, they should be separate coils in the boiler. If there is a call for heat, the boiler should fire up and, if anything, you should have warmer water for your domestic water (the domestic water coil is generally smaller and heats up quicker than the heating coil).

Aside from a point of use hot water heater, the only other option I'm aware of to get hot water to the point of use quickly is a recirculating pump. The downside to that is it requires twice the amount of piping and an added pump.

 

You can do a stand alone electric hot water heater inline with the hot water from the furnace. Not sure what's up with the domestic hot water portion, they've been out multiple times. Like I said above, I suspect crappy insulation in the hot water conduit corridor up tot he second floor to be a big part of it. Unfortunately, not really any way to check it out without cutting a bunch of holes in my walls.

 

Do not put in electric heat if you can avoid it. Electric heat is horribly inefficient.

 

No electirc heat, but considering doing a supplemental hot water heater inline with the current hot water on demand furnace.

 

How long do you have to wait for hot water? Is the piping ridiculously long?

 

Can be around 10 minutes or more sometimes on the second floor. The first floor is at most a minute, not long at all. We only have one shower, and it's on the second floor. Up there it can be 10+ minutes, sometimes longer in the winter. I don't think they are that long, the furnace is offset maybe 30-35' laterally from the upstairs shower, and then 2 floors down in the basement.

 

I would go on http://www.masssave.com/ and get an energy audit. They may hook you up with some insulation for that pipe. I would recommend that site for anybody who owns a house and is serviced by one of the providers shown. It is funded by your electric, oil, and/or gas bills.

 

Woke up today to snow on the ground.....APRIL 25th!!!!!! It's gone already but man oh man I am tired of this crud

10 minutes running a tap is alot of water to put down the drain while you wait for hot.

Is it an old house? Copper and other heavier metal pipe will dissipate the heat quickly on a long (uninsulated) run for sure. I have alot of plastic pipe due to the house only being two years old. 1300sq/ft Bungalow and even the furthest tap has hot in under 30sec. My only complaint is my water pressure. I need to pump up my tank and see if that cures it.

 

Nope, relatively new. Built in 2004, all plastic pipe except at the furnace itself.

 

My wife has been trying to get me to do that energy audit and I absolutely refuse. Call it a tin foil theory but I can see them building up data of homes that aren't up to a certain specification and the next step would be forcing all homes to meet a certain spec. Now they have a comprehensive list of everyone that is outstanding. I borrowed a thermal camera from work and did my own assessment and have been making insulation upgrades as I go.

 

You should see all the new residential building codes for energy efficiency, some of them are outrageous.

 

This..and definitely insulation, cheap fix for a few issues.

 

Looks like it was going to start without me

 

I'd bet the control isn't set for hot water priority. If you have a Honeywell control that has hot water priority, it will not allow the baseboard circulator to come on if your pulling hot water. Water on demand off of the boiler work great for the first few years until the coil starts go get clogged and is then less efficient in transfer. Then you wind up with the drop in water temp over time issue and the ladies start complaining that the water goes cold when shaving the legs... I had the same issue about 5 years ago on a boiler that was maybe 6 years old. I looked at a few options. Gas fired on demand systems work really good if you don't over draw the capacity that the system has. I went with an indirect fired water heater which is basically another zone with it's own circulator and storage tank. I found my oil consumption went down with this set up as the furnace wouldn't kick on everytime you opened the hot water tap. If you have the access and room, you could install a water heater (tankless gas, indirect, or whatever) closer to the bath on the second floor - trying to split the distance between the baths and kitchen. Pipe insulation really helps too.

 

Do you own your home, Sloth? Or do you guys rent?