Tuesday, June 09, 2009

I'm in HOT WATER!

As part of an energy upgrade to our home, which is winding up today; our energy auditor and contractor, Recurve (formerly Sustainable Spaces), recommended we install an Advanced Conservation Technologies Metlund D'MAND Hot Water System.

I had never heard of it, but was intrigued when they explained to me how it worked.

What it does is pump hot water from the hot water heater, through the supply line and bridges back to the cold water line until the water comes up to a preset temperature.

We have been living with the Metlund for a few days now and I am really excited about this product.

We push the button and it runs for a few minutes and then shuts down. Because it is installed in the bathroom farthest from the hot water heater, ALL of the faucets in the house are then ready to be turned on and immediately produce hot water.

We are using it several times a day.

This is so cool.
Recurve estimates that we will save 5000 gallons of water a year that would have gone down the drain waiting for the water to get hot (No more guilt when I water my bonsai).

Recurve estimates our payback will be two years. A person handy with plumbing (not me) could easily do the installation themselves and get a quicker payback. In fact, I can't imagine why anyone would not want to install this system!

Ours is installed in our crawl space under the house. I highly recommend this option if you have the supply lines and electrical connection available, or easy to achieve, there. The system is definitely utilitarian in appearance, so hiding it away is the best option.

Here's an installation video on YouTube:



P.S. For you Buy-It-Yourselfers: Take the POLL in the right sidebar at the Metlund web site and you get $50 off your purchase.

Peggy

An addendum:
Recurve has now given us two remote controls for the Metlund.

We keep one in the kitchen and the other in our second bath.

No more running back to the other bath to push the button to get hot water in the other locations.

This is GREAT!