Water waste

I can't be the only person who hates to see how much water is wasted waiting for it to get hot at the faucet/ shower etc.
I'm a retired (over 25 years ago) architect so there was no real choice as to how to get hot water other than a large gas or electric unit probably in the basement'
Now with the advent of instant water heaters, no storing and keeping a tank hot, I think it makes sense to pipe only one cold pipe through the whole house and have a small electric unit under each sink....any comments?

 

What is the short and long term cost? Short term I don't think I could afford to have those installed. Three full baths and one half bath. Plus a kitchen sink. And laundry.

 

In my home the kitchen sink and the master BR are fairly close to the existing hot water tank so we don't wait very long.
In the other shower though I think this would be awesome to have. Just not sure where it would fit.

 

In Asia, the norm is to have a smaller hot water tank that is turned on and off as it is needed. When I first moved here, I was always pissed that we were running out of hot water (I was sharing a flat) until I discovered the magic of the hot water switch.

I had been hoping to install inline heating in my Toronto house before we sold it. Many of the places in I've stayed in in London and Cannes have inline heating and it's quite efficient.

I would imagine the initial cost of installation would be something to consider, but I was planning on doing this when my aging water tank finally died.

 

IIRC a small undersink 110 V plug in unit was not outrageously expensive..

 

You would probably save more water by making sure your showers and toilets are all low flow.

 

I am with you on the low flow showers. We had one for a short while when I was a kid. It sucked.

 

Once my water heater dies, it is getting replaced by an instant on one. I hardly use any hot water, so I am more upset at the waste of gas to heat the tank than the 1 minute of water that it takes to get hot. And the size would make a lot more sense with where I have to install it at.

They have sail boat electric hot water heaters that might be small enough to install in an existing bathroom. Or make sure the pipe going to the bathroom is insulated, even if it is and interior one.

If I lived in the desert southwest, I would be getting a solar thermal system. I'm surprised you don't see more of those.

 

Here is my water tank and the switch.

Very different from the size and the thermostat driven hot water tank that we used in Toronto.

 

Wow, "I didn't know that"

 

What's the point of having a dishwasher if you wash them anyway?

 

That's just the most bizarre thing I've heard today.

After years of hand washing dishes, when I finally had a dishwasher, there was no way I was going to hand wash unless I had to. Why would people want to do *more* work when the whole point of a dishwasher is to alleviate that drudgery?

People are weird.

 

When I last visited England & Scotland, the rage was having an electric heater in the bathroom specifically for the bath/shower water. I have no idea how much juice they used, but it seemed like a very good idea to me (properly installed, for obvious reasons).

 

First let me say we HAVE a BOSCH dishwasher, does an incredible job, takes between 40 and 75 minutes !
Since we are just 2 people, it hardly pays to put the very few dishes in the machine, I have my "system" ,takes me 5 minutes to wash the dishes, glasses and utensils.
I really do not mind ... (I don't dry, they air dry)