Plumbing - What is this?

[mk378]

There are also two pumps for the heating loops mounted to the left of the manifolds for the red pipes. Those are wired into the water heater which might have a feature to control them. It looks like there are 4 heating pipes per pump, all 8 of them return to the one manifold on the top.

The extra pump to the far left appears to be taking water from the white PEX in the floor, which would be return from the hot water faucets.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Definitely a hot water recirc loop. You can follow the pipe coming out of it to the right where it tees into the cold water line for make up water then into the right side of the heater. = ...

Why would it have a NEMA 5-15p how do you control it? Plus no AL clad wire (req. by code?) Not saying your wrong in any way AZjeff, just curious.

(BTW my Brother just moved to AZ last year. He was baking out there last week! He is in Gilbert, eight mi S.E. of Scottsdale) - Ken

 

[Mazomopar]

Might be a grundfos recirc knock off brand. Grundfos has a smart version without an external timer but close to 400 smackers. Is that gas regulator something that's allowed in a enclosed area?

 

[AZjeff]

Why would it have a NEMA 5-15p how do you control it? Plus no AL clad wire (req. by code?) Not saying your wrong in any way AZjeff, just curious.

(BTW my Brother just moved to AZ last year. He was baking out there last week! He is in Gilbert, eight mi S.E. of Scottsdale) - Ken

The hot water loop is supposed to run continuously. Our pump says continuous duty right on it. The builder supplied a cheap timer that you plug into the outlet and the pump plugs into if people want to have it shut down. I have it go off at 10.30pm and come back on at 5.00am. Not sure it saves any money as the lines cool and have to be warmed back up but maybe it does. They said it adds $5/month and it's worth it. I don't know electric code but this was a new house inspected a number of time through the build and approved by an inspector so just have to assume it's fine. No doubt it was plugged into that box the water heater is plugged into.

If your bro moved to the valley from NH then he has some adjusting to do. It's the opposite temp extreme but people do the same you do in winter, stay inside mostly, go from house to car to work or house to car to the store or whatever. Do outside stuff really early or late. We're 100 miles north at 5000' so usually 10-15 degrees cooler. Right now Gilbert shows 101 and we're 90. People either love the SW or hate it.

 

[JustinH]

That is a thousand times more complicated than our new build house Rinnai gas tankless water heater.

You sure there is no in slab floor heating or something like that? Driveway defroster?

 

[AZjeff]

The manifolds on the right with the red pex lines are heat loops.

 

[Dinoburner]

The gas regulator has a vent limiter on it which might cover code but I wouldn`t be surprised if code required venting to the outside.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

I must have worked on that. I don't remember but definitely looks like my work.

 

[zzyzzx]

We need to see the writing on the unplugged item. My guess is either a small pump or a solenoid.

 

[Vil_Riker]

No offence intended

 

[ARCOgraphite]

If your bro moved to the valley from NH then he has some adjusting to do. It's the opposite temp extreme but people do the same you do in winter, stay inside mostly, go from house to car to work or house to car to the store or whatever. Do outside stuff really early or late. We're 100 miles north at 5000' so usually 10-15 degrees cooler. Right now Gilbert shows 101 and we're 90. People either love the SW or hate it.

No, he did the "get out of Cali" thing and moved East from Santa Clarita, CA.
Still a bit of adjustment as they had pretty decent weather over there. They just went through a bad heat wave with temps over 110 for many days and mid 80's during the nightime!

You will never see me in Florida and I guess I'll stay east of the Mississippi for the rest of my days
though I suppose I could be talked in to venturing south to tornado country

 

[walterjay]

It is a recirculation pump. I have installed a few of them. Can't remember the brand.

 

[JC1]

Looks like a subway map for a big city! Lol

 

[K.Aoi]

Lots of people in here never seen a pressure balancing water distribution setup before apparently lol

 

[Mazomopar]

I'd have a really hard time convincing myself to install a recirculation system in a on demand system. The whole idea of on demand is not having a big ol static 50 gallon tank of hot water that continually reheats itself. Recirculating that water thru out the system to its nether regions for the convenience of instant warm water is something I appreciate. Some system can even be piped to flow using simle convection. With on demand, there really is no radiator effect without a storehouse of hot water available. Seems like all you are doing is constantly pushing water thru the heating coils of the heater. And if there is no call from the demand side,I dont think the burner will engage. Making the cool even cooler.

 

[NormanBuntz]

No offence intended

My favorite is the scene with the cook, played by Dudley Dickerson: "This house has sure gone crazy."

 

[oilcandave]

A friend of mine put in an IBC wall hung space/domestic heater. Got a call from him to diagnose a code and no domestic hot water. After reading the service manual there is a setting...comfort setting..that keeps the unit hot at the domestic temp setting. When i got there the unit was turning on and off every 7 seconds and the water temp was set at 145f. Someone obviously was fooling with the settings. I reset the parameters and all is good now. But one could use this standby setting to do a gravity recirc line....would'nt need to flow so much water with a circulator through the loop to keep the burner on. Not for me though...

Oh...that unit will not restart itself after a power outage..ya have to fly back from Florida to turn the unit back on if its winter..