This may be a silly forum for some but for ME Plumbing is part of my life’s profession.
I’d never be on this forum unless I needed help or I was offering help.
I don’t participate in any other form of social media. No Facebook, twitter,etc.
Taking water TOO long to get hot.
- Thread starter Nathan Alston
- Start date
Help Support Plumbing Forums:
This may be a silly forum for some but for ME Plumbing is part of my life’s profession.
I’d never be on this forum unless I needed help or I was offering help.
I don’t participate in any other form of social media. No Facebook, twitter,etc.
I myself enjoy this forum, I learn from it and enjoy the banter. I would not call it silly. I almost feel I know the pros that offer help. I offer what little that I know, but really am very impressed by the knowledge here. I don't think sarge meant any offense.
I agree. I've learned more from this forum than any other forum I administrate. You may think I am biased, but I have never received one cent for helping the owner by being a moderator on this forum. Many people come in here for help, and without any fanfare or applause, they go out of their way to help these folks.
I've said it before, and is worth repeating numerous times, that I appreciate everyone who contributes and helps those who need help.
I've said it before, and is worth repeating numerous times, that I appreciate everyone who contributes and helps those who need help.
wpatters1229
Member
wpatters1229
Member
I had the same problem but installed a circulation pump with an on/off switch under my sink in the bathroom that is furthest from the water heater. I turn it on when wanting to take a shower or bath. I let it run for about 5 minutes or you can test the hot water via the faucet. This circulates the hot water flow back into the cold water. When it is hot flip the switch off and you are good. All the other faucets along the feed will also now have hot water. Not expensive and you can install it yourself. You will need 120 volts wall switch but if you are handy you can add one under the sink along with a switch.
pasadena_commut
Well-Known Member
Is there at least a corresponding requirement for equal or more insulation on the hot line? The return line might be warm or hot sometimes, and not wasting that heat might save a few pennies on the utility bill. At least as long as the pump doesn't run when the back sprinklers are on, which will in many houses shunt that warm water away from the water heater. On the other hand, the hot line should be hot always, at least when there is a reasonable flow through it, so insulating that would seem to be a higher priority, and a modification which should more regularly result in lower energy costs.
Mitchell-DIY-Guy
Well-Known Member
There are NO insulation requirements on the hot water lines.
pasadena_commut
Well-Known Member
Bizarre. Are they afraid that the return line might freeze? Wait, let me guess, there is no insulation requirement on the cold line either.
Mitchell-DIY-Guy
Well-Known Member
Right. No insulation required on pipes EXCEPT a hot water return line.
Just one little tidbit of a slew of bizarre (to me) building practices and codes here.
Mitchell-DIY-Guy
Well-Known Member
@pasadena_commut here are a few other gems from my inspections and observations around here that make little sense.
1. Electrical Service Panels on the outside of a home. Yes, exposed to the elements. We get torrential rains, freezing temperatures, hot humid summers with triple digit temps and they put the service panel (NOT in a weatherproof NEMA 4 enclosure mind you, but a plain enclosure) Now imagine you pop a breaker or there's some electrical emergency and there's torrential rain. Do YOU want to go outside and fiddle with a panel? Ah, hell no.
2. No Drip Edge on Gables. Every quality roofing manufacturer recommends it. Best practices contractors do it. But it's not required here on residential roofs, so they don't use it. What happens? Excessive overhang which leads to shingle lift in high winds, and curling of the shingles which leads to failure on the edges. It's the least costly component of a roof or re-roof job, yet they refuse to use it. I've seen inspectors of new homes rightfully point out excessive overhang, and I've seen those roofers have to come back and spend MORE TIME correcting their problem then if they had used the drip edge in the first place! The kicker is it USED to be code here, and still is for commercial structures. So, you can have one of those older homes on a Main Street now used for commercial purposes, and a re-roof will require drip edge. The residential house behind it? Not required.
3. Pier and Beam Construction with Masonry Piers. OK, when you have a poured wall foundation, I've seen a small crew stake out the lot on a Monday, excavate Tuesday morning, layout and pour footings Tuesday afternoon, set forms on Wednesday, pour walls on Thursday, remove forms on Friday, and they are framing on Monday. Here, I've seen a crew of five men take three weeks to build a block wall foundation, and build close to 50 masonry piers within the footprint of the home. Three weeks. They absolutely LOVE concrete block here and use it for anything they can. It's like they've never seen a poured wall.
4. Irregular Nasty Crawl Spaces. OK, so you don't "understand" a basement, you don't want a slab and want to build with a crawl space. Fine. Why can't you build a nice crawl space? Why must you have a festering swamp with a sloping dirt floor? I've seen so much nastiness in crawl spaces leading to equipment degradation, vermin and more. Seriously? Who wants to live above that nonsense. You can pour a concrete floor, have it flat, and insulate and seal the walls and poof! Beautiful crawl space...and improved conditions above.
I had mold growing in my crawl space here and within months of moving in had it encapsulated. Expensive yes, AFTER THE FACT. Would have been so much easier to do it correctly from the start during the building process. Now it's clean and dry.
1. Electrical Service Panels on the outside of a home. Yes, exposed to the elements. We get torrential rains, freezing temperatures, hot humid summers with triple digit temps and they put the service panel (NOT in a weatherproof NEMA 4 enclosure mind you, but a plain enclosure) Now imagine you pop a breaker or there's some electrical emergency and there's torrential rain. Do YOU want to go outside and fiddle with a panel? Ah, hell no.
2. No Drip Edge on Gables. Every quality roofing manufacturer recommends it. Best practices contractors do it. But it's not required here on residential roofs, so they don't use it. What happens? Excessive overhang which leads to shingle lift in high winds, and curling of the shingles which leads to failure on the edges. It's the least costly component of a roof or re-roof job, yet they refuse to use it. I've seen inspectors of new homes rightfully point out excessive overhang, and I've seen those roofers have to come back and spend MORE TIME correcting their problem then if they had used the drip edge in the first place! The kicker is it USED to be code here, and still is for commercial structures. So, you can have one of those older homes on a Main Street now used for commercial purposes, and a re-roof will require drip edge. The residential house behind it? Not required.
3. Pier and Beam Construction with Masonry Piers. OK, when you have a poured wall foundation, I've seen a small crew stake out the lot on a Monday, excavate Tuesday morning, layout and pour footings Tuesday afternoon, set forms on Wednesday, pour walls on Thursday, remove forms on Friday, and they are framing on Monday. Here, I've seen a crew of five men take three weeks to build a block wall foundation, and build close to 50 masonry piers within the footprint of the home. Three weeks. They absolutely LOVE concrete block here and use it for anything they can. It's like they've never seen a poured wall.
4. Irregular Nasty Crawl Spaces. OK, so you don't "understand" a basement, you don't want a slab and want to build with a crawl space. Fine. Why can't you build a nice crawl space? Why must you have a festering swamp with a sloping dirt floor? I've seen so much nastiness in crawl spaces leading to equipment degradation, vermin and more. Seriously? Who wants to live above that nonsense. You can pour a concrete floor, have it flat, and insulate and seal the walls and poof! Beautiful crawl space...and improved conditions above.
I had mold growing in my crawl space here and within months of moving in had it encapsulated. Expensive yes, AFTER THE FACT. Would have been so much easier to do it correctly from the start during the building process. Now it's clean and dry.
pasadena_commut
Well-Known Member
I was with you up to the crawl spaces section. A dirt floor does have some advantages. If there is a leak from either a crack in the foundation or a pipe, and it isn't too bad, the moisture will disappear down into the dirt. If the floor was concrete it would just sit there in a big puddle, or maybe fill up until it hits the ventilation openings. How well this drainage works will depend on the local conditions. Not so well with clay one would imagine. Digging straight down under our house there would first be a whole lot of dirt (40 ft?), and then around a hundred feet of alluvial rock and gravel, then bedrock, so the amount of water that can drain into it is pretty substantial. If the leak is huge then you get mud and standing water, and that could be really bad if the piers and posts in the middle of the house start buckling. But when is a leak like that not a total disaster? Anyway, I have never seen our crawlspace swampy, even when it has been raining hard for weeks. On the other hand it is always dusty. I only move around down there with a good mask and eye protection, because any movement kicks up fine soil which gets all over everything.
Mitchell-DIY-Guy
Well-Known Member
Well if you’re in an area that doesn’t have hot humid summers (like the SE) the swamp thing won’t happen. When you have a hot humid day— very typical summer weather in the SE, this hot moist air comes into the crawl space, you’ve got that dew point thing, and condensation. I’ve inspected them when they are literally dripping. Mold growth on HVAC equipment, puddles of water, etc. which leads to vermin. They CAN be done correctly. See photo.
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I'd love to have a walk in "crawl space" like this!
I’d never own a house that has a crawlspace.
See how easy that is ?
I live in basically the rainiest city in the country. Crawlspaces are a liability and are unnecessary IMO.
See how easy that is ?
I live in basically the rainiest city in the country. Crawlspaces are a liability and are unnecessary IMO.
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pasadena_commut
Well-Known Member
Me too. With built in lighting no less. One could leave a mechanic's crawler down there and just scoot around effortlessly. In ours, with very little height, I cannot even crawl "upright" (like a baby), the required motion is a soldier's low crawl, as is used when going under barbed wire or when under fire.
Poured basement walls, I moved to SC in 1980, started building my house in 85, you think I could find anyone that knew anything about poured walls. All they knew was concrete block. No internet then, so no in depth searching, but I really looked, nobody had a clue.
So I'm stuck with block.
Mitchell-DIY-Guy
Well-Known Member
Haha. I did have a mechanic's creeper down there and it allowed me to scoot around that crawl space. It was what they called a "5-Block" crawl space as each pier was built with five blocks. Temperature was quite stable down there year round. Oh, it fluctuated a bit but was never "cold" in the winter nor "hot" in the summer. And dry.
Mitchell-DIY-Guy
Well-Known Member
I've seen a few homes here (NC) with poured walls. Not too many. My friend is building one right now, and her builder chose poured walls. Not too common but not impossible to find. In one of them I saw being built last year here (they usually do it with "walk out basement" style homes) they had so much darn steel in the concrete I couldn't believe it. Had to be earthquake proof. In the poured walls done "up north" there's just a very minor amount of steel; a few verticals to attach to the footers, and now they use steel form separators that stay in the wall instead of leaving "rod holes" that need filling.
Mitchell-DIY-Guy
Well-Known Member
I'm not exactly certain how and why builders around here choose a crawl space or slab. Maybe cost? I don't know.I’d never own a house that has a crawlspace.
See how easy that is ?
I live in basically the rainiest city in the country. Crawlspaces are a liability and are unnecessary IMO.
Empirical observation says that the tract houses--massive subdivisions from large builders such as Lennar, Pulte, MI Homes and similar are all built on monolithic slabs. The costlier homes from those builders who call themselves "semi-custom" are all on crawl spaces.
A relatively new trend with the tract homes too is almost exclusively the flooring is 100% LVP. Sometimes tile in the bathrooms. Never hardwoods.
If your locale rains a lot and your humidity is high, a conventional crawl space is indeed a liability. Those photos attached show a disgusting crawl space I inspected. There was mold growing all over the place, but in the dark, most visible on the HUMIDIFIER. The poorly installed ductwork was dripping everywhere, and you can see one of many puddles. It was nearly 100 degrees outside, 75 degrees in the crawl space, and humidity down there was 86%. That's a swamp.
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Probably because of the compressive soil. I have that and it made my walls bow in. I had to reinforce them. During the wet season, I'd get cracks, in the dry the cracks would dissapear. So,, that's been fixed with carbon fiber and epoxy... no more bowing.
