A friend has an always warm recirculating system. It uses a small pump
rotor that is in the pipe and powered by an external field. You can't beat
it for comfort and is great for a family in regular residence. It is not
without problems though.

One is the the extra loss of constantly heated pipes.

Another is the bearings which have limited life.

A third is the rather unexpected wear constantly circulating water has on
the copper pipes.

Another is the difficutly of putting an extral pipe to the long run sink.

The first three are reduced by running the pump with a timer which runs it
only when people can be expected to use it most often.
Blue


"Don" wrote in message
...
Again, the problem with how long it takes for the water to get warm
is no different, the one I had was 5-10 feet from the tub, mounted on
the other side of the shower wall, thus no real lengthy pipes to deal
with. I did not notice any 60 sec. wait, in fact I think I got hot
water rarther quickly.
A regular tank will fire up when a certain water temp is reached in
the tank, and will stay on until the entire tank is reheated, and then
come on and go off as needed to maintain a temp. This is where the
savings comes into play, as you are not cycling on and off when no
water is being used. The only time the gas was used was when there was
a demand for water. The one I had used a pilot, so there was no wait
for heated water once the water started to flow.
The system worked very well, but where I lived, I could not keep the
pilot lit, nor the burner going. Imagine instant freezing cold water
when the burner went off in the middle of your hot shower.........

Don