I think I remember seeing a device like this on a home improvement show. Is there a device that you attach to you plumbing that will allow you to have hot water, on demand, at any sink in the house?
A water heater?
Seriously, you must mean those instant boiling water faucets. I have a friend that has one. It is attached to your sink plumbing, and delivers water at a near boiling temperature.
http://shop.toohome.com/index.asp?nPage=36
Looks convenient.
Are you talking about “on-demand water heaters”?
http://www.eren.doe.gov/consumerinfo/refbriefs/bc1.html
I had one of these that was simply a small (1/2 gal) electric water heater installed under the sink. Great for tea drinkers, etc. Pain to install, but worked pretty well.
For those used to hot water on demand, in abondance, on-demand hot water heaters are the equivalent of heating water while backpacking.
The hot water is produced very slowly. Even with modern models, one can wait for 30 seconds for a reasonable temperature to come, and even then there’s a feeling it isn’t constant, so one’s hands are continually ready to pull back, in case it gets too hot.
There are types in Europe, at least, with a limited maximum capacity. Put money in, wait. When the water’s hot, time everything so that the total hot water doesn’t run out before finishing what’s in hand.
It’s hard to understand why engineering is so worthless for such a simple goal.
I can’t remember what they’re called, but what about a device that circulates the hot water? In effect, what they do is run the hot water when the water at the tap starts getting cold. However, since it gets recirculated, it doesn’t waste any water. However I believe they require quite a bit of additional plumbing.
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- It’s called a flow heater. It’s an electrical heater inline with the pipe that only turns on when the water is run. - DougC
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What I say is a small device that was installed under the sink. The host of the show said that you need to install it at the end of the line in the plumbing (what ever that means) and that all the faucets before that one would have hot water as soon as you turn it on. He said that in the long run it would pay for it self in saved water that people waist when they let the sink run waiting for the hot water. Any ideas?
You can buy these at most of the larger home centers: Home Depot, Lowe’s, etc., and at most plumbing supply places. I beleive I saw the same show as the OP did, but I beleive the guy doing the demo is underwritten/sponsored by the manufacutrers and retailers of such devices.
What the device does is to “flash” heat the small quantity of water passing through it. In a lot of American homes, they are of very dubious utility (due to the layout of the homes); if they really were necessary, they would be much more common that they presently are.
Slichtly bigger versions are common in European homes for use in place of the type of water heaters we in the states commonly use. Supposedly this is because they don’t want to spare the floor/closet space for a tank type water heater, but my suspicion is that they write the building codes to push the use of a system which uses more (highly taxed) energy.
“…install it at the end of the line in the plumbing (what ever that means) and that all the faucets before that one would have hot water as soon as you turn it on…” What the guy on TV meant is this: It is common in homes (say my suburban DC townhouse) to have the heavy and large water heater in the basement with the other utility devices like the furnace, washer, dryer. etc. But it’s equally common to have a frequently used bathroom on the second floor. So to turn on the sink or shower and have to wait for the water to get hot wastes time and money. This bathroom, being the water outlet that is the greatest distance from the heater, would be “the end of the line” where the mini flash heater goes. It heats the smaller amount of water in it and this theoretically passes elsewhere in the pipes, making hot water instantly available throughout the home.
In my area, water is not so expensive that I can’t brush my teeth and even shave while it runs, letting the hot water be drawn up to the “distant” shower (really maybe only 50 feet of pipe). Even if I just let the shower run to “warm up”, it doesn’t take but a moment.
The devices don’t sell well, and I haven’t ever seen one installed even in high end homes. That ought to speak to the percieved necessity of them.
Sounds like you might be talking about a GFX, ace.
Basically, it’s a heat exchanger (a coil of copper tubing that carries water) that captures the heat from the shower, etc., wastewater that’s just going down the drain, and uses it to preheat water going to the taps (and/or the water heater … you can set it up a few different ways).
Pretty simple and ingenious, really, and it’s amazing no one thought of it before (been around since 1980ish, just now becoming more widely available). It costs about $300-400, and tests indicate that it might save the average homeowner about $100 a year in water heating costs.
li’l dickie has it. i think that that’s the exact same one that i saw on tv. thanks.