Hot water recirculation pump

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JacobD72

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I have a question about the bronze pump recirculation pump I understand that you use that with a on-demand tank and that little device under the farthest sink so you're not wasting the water in the pipe going down the drain it push it through to the cold side I have two questions question number one can I put a recirculation pump and that little device on a regular conventional hot water tanks number two when you open the hot water valve doesn't the water meter still run when it's pushing water through to the other side if so there's really no death there will be no difference between using a recirculation pump versus just letting it run down the drain if you're still getting charged from your water company.
 

DIYorBust

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1) Yes.
2) No.

In a tankless setup you wouldn't want constant circulation causing the water heater to fire constantly, so you'd need a system that didn't cause that. A conventional water heater would work fine.

Water should not pass through the meter during circulation, it would go back into the water heater cold inlet. Water is being pulled out of the tank by the circulator, so that is the place the water pumped into the cold line would have space to go. It would be better to have the third line so the cold line wasn't filled with hot water, but harder to retrofit.
 

Jadnashua

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If you have a tempering valve, recirculation can get a little messier with a dedicated return that normally would go to the drain of the WH. Some of the tempering valves have a port for the recirculated water. If you do have a tempering valve, have a dedicated return, and it doesn't have a port for the return, you might want to return it to a T on the inlet, prior to the tempering valve.

The reason is, if the water in the tank is hotter than 120, and the tempering valve is trying to add cold to temper it, there's no flow from the cold side and the outlet can get too hot. If you run the return to the cold inlet, it can still temper the water as the returning water shouldn't be hotter than the outlet, and it can be mixed in to keep it safe.

If you don't have a dedicated return line, the tempering valve should work fine. You do need a check valve so that when you run the hot, you don't suck it from both the hot and cold lines, though.

But, as said, when the pump runs, it's basically just going around a loop from the water heater and back.
 
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