Adding a second water heater

[muddstopper]

I added a preheater and extra 40gal tank to my wood stove. Cut my power bill down by $50 month and the longer your in the shower, the hotter the water gets. Hard to regulate the temps in the tank hooked to the wood stove, hotter the fire, the hotter the water. Water from the preheater and tank flow to my electric heater so I have hot water going into the electric heater to replace the hot water being used. This setup works really great in the winter, but not so well in the summer. Weather warms up, the wood stove dies out. I am considering building a solar collector to let the sun heat the water in my preheater tank. I did one for a buddy and we where able to get 130* water in Dec. He has a gas fules tankless and it seldom ever turns on.

 

[dstig1]

Well...I guess if you use one of those modern, legal shower heads. I haven't found one yet that I was willing to live with in its unmodified state.

I thought the same. Our last house we bought as a model house 18 yrs ago. I knew the flow restrictors were in place but figured I would try them and see. That lasted exactly 1 shower and I yanked them all. Fast forward to last year and the new house I have built (well..building...not done yet but we are moved in). I put in Delta "H2OKinetic" shower heads. Low flow but designed to feel like full flow. We've been here since Aug, and I haven't pulled the flow restrictors. I think someone finally figured it out. They aren't perfect, but they are pretty darn close to "normal" showers. Enough so that I have not heard any complaints from the female crew (and no, I never told them what I was doing - I ain't no fool). I am fine with them too. Time marches onward and the technology improves... Especially with a septic it is nice to know an extra ton of water isn't going down the tube every day...

 

[mikefromnh]

To pre-empt a water shortage problem in my house I plumbed in two triangle tube 119 gallon indirect water heaters in series. They can be heated by my oil boiler or my gassification wood boiler via 1000 gallons of hot water that is stored in two well insulated propane tanks.

I used a manabloc and pex plumbing and feed every single fixture in the house separately with a dedicated line. With a tempering valve on the output I can set the water temp at 175 and have hot water for a week. Can run both dishwashers, 2 or 3 showers and the washing machine at the same time with no complaints.

Not sure if it's the right answer for the op but works for me.

And yes I drilled out all the flow restrictors

 

[tractorshopper]

I had issues in my previous 2 houses as my daughters got older and I tired quickly of luke warm turning to cold showers. When I bought the house we're in now, I had a plumber add a 2nd hot water heater before we even moved in. I've been very happy ever since. Unfortunately, we don't have gas or I would have gone tankless. I looked at this option, but it just wasn't feasible for me. Now, all 4 of us can get ready basically at the same time without any of us running out of hot water. When the kids move on to college in the coming years, I'll probably shut the breaker off to one of them and keep it as backup only for if/when problems arise.

 

[xtn]

Dave,

Thanks for the tip on the H20Kinetic units. Hadn't heard of those. Maybe I'll try one of those later this year when I redo our master bath shower.