Hot water plumbing question
 

My wife and I are building a new house and we are going to have the
plumber install two hot water heaters both in our crawl space which is
spacious. One of the heaters will be under the kitchen and service
the kitchen and the adjoining utility room. The other heater will be
at the other end of the house under the master bath room and it will
also supply the guest bath room. My question is this. Can this be
plumbed in a way that will allow the two heaters to feed off each
other and thereby double the capacity of water available at each end?
I can understand how you could put two heaters side by side and
connect them in series and have all of the hot water serviced from the
2nd heater in the series. However, I can't figure out how you can
accomplish the same thing with two heaters that are located at each
end of a house.

I 'think' there might be a way but it would be fairly unusual. For the
price of doing all that could you put in tankless water heaters ? They
heat the water when you turn the faucet on and provide unlimited hot
water. I think they make them in gas and electric. Seems easier than
the dual water heaters. www.tankless.com is an example, I do not work
for that firm, they came up first in google.

On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 09:48:18 -0500, someone wrote:

They could be plumbed in parallel, rather than series.
Not a good arrangement IMHO. Unless you also install
a wasteful circulating loop(s), the cold water in the
line between the heaters will always be introduced
into the Hot supply for one end of the house or the
other.

What he said, if you are going to have heaters at each end, the
purpose of which is to avoid delay in getting hot water at the two
widely spaced use points. If you want to have two heaters in series
to increase the total storage, you will lose the original purpose of a
tank close to each use point. And if you try to parallel them and
keep the original purpose, it aint never gonna work right because you
will not get an even flow from both tanks when drawing from one end of
the house or the other.

If you pick 2 heaters each close to its point of use, that's what you
picked. Otherwise to get total capacity, put two in either one
central spot, or else favor one end over the other, and understand
there will be a delay, unless you use a circulating system.



Reply to NG only - this e.mail address goes to a kill file.

On 27 Mar 2005 00:21:56 -0800, someone wrote:

For the price of doing all that could you put in tankless water heaters?
cut
Seems easier than the dual water heaters.

How would two tankless be easier than two tanks?

He'll still need two if he wants them close to each point of use.


Reply to NG only - this e.mail address goes to a kill file.

I would put in a tankless heater in those areas not in the crawl space
before I would even consider putting any water heaters in a crawl
space. Crawl spaces are not good places to install anything IMO.