Recirculting pump w/ tankless

[Scottp]

My electric bill is sky high due and i have traced it to my water heater recirculating pump which was on 24/7 when i bought the house. I put it on a timer and my bill literally came down hundreds of dollars. If the pump is turned off, it takes minutes to get hot water at some faucets and others never get past warm. So no pump doesnt seem to be an option. Even coming on late works better than off. The problem is now my wife is not working and is home all day and it is unpredictable when hot water is needed.

i am looking for any way to reduce my bill which i believe is connected to the run time of the pump (it causes my water heater to cycle on constantly to reheat the water that has traveled through the house and back).

Is there a pump that can sense demand and then turn on? What about tankless? Will this also work with recirc pump- or will that defeat the purpose becasue the pump will constantly draw water from the tankless? also, any demand switch that is activated must have an auto-off feature. My wife will not remember to turn things off.

Any ideas?

 

[IFIXH20]

An average cost to run a recir pump is around $265.00 per year (If I'm not mistaken). If your bill drop hundreds of dollars in a month I think you may have other issues. What type of water heater do you have (gas or electric) ? Do you have a standard recir loop or a pump with a bypass under the sink ?

 

[Christoph]

You can either put your circ pump on a timer (which might not be a solution to your problem), or you can run your circ pump through an aqua stat, which will make your pump run only when the temperature of the water in the recirc line drops below a set temperature.

 

[Scottp]

I have an electric water heater and Im pretty sure I have a dedicated recirc loop. There are 2 pipes coming from the wall which merge into 1 for the cold water in.

The pump is already on a timer, but since my wife is home all day, the timer is set to run the pump all day. We only shut it off at bedtime.

An aqua stat sounds like a good idea can you give me some detail on how to do that. I cant imagine it takes a long time for the water in the pipes to cool.. Wont it cycle the pump on like every 10 minutes? Still, thats better than continuous run.

 

[speedbump]

These recirc pipes are insulated. Right???

 

[camaroderrick73]

Very few tankless models can use a recuriculation pump. I know ao smith makes a new series that you can attach a special tankless recirc to the unit.

 

[havasu]

Very few tankless models can use a recuriculation pump. I know ao smith makes a new series that you can attach a special tankless recirc to the unit.

Then again, there are tankless models with recirculation pumps built into them. This is mine and I still love it 4 years later.


http://www.navienamerica.com/

 

[Scottp]

I will check that out. Recirc pipes are not insulated but they in walls and floor and not accessible.

 

[camaroderrick73]

Then again, there are tankless models with recirculation pumps built into them. This is mine and I still love it 4 years later.

http://www.navienamerica.com/

Havasu,
That's why I said very few. Navien is not user friendly, that's why I don't recommend them. But if it works for you I'm glad someone raves about them... No one I know likes them.