Passive hot water recirculating loop

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Jm66208

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Came across this setup today in a ranch house where there is a hot water loop around the perimeter of the basement returning to the tank drain. There is no pump or check valve in the system. Homeowner reports excellent performance with the system with instant hot water to all fixtures. Only thing I could think of to improve the system would be to insulate the pipes, but hate to touch it. how can a setup like this work so well?
 

hj

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It ONLY works if the pipe flows uphill all the way to the far end and downhill all the way back to the water heater, without ANY "up and down offsets". There are some other requirements to keep it working correctly, but that is the physics behind it.
 
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Hey, wait a minute.

This is awkward, but...

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