I have a market garden which I would like to water. I have 30 beds 100 ft long. The water will be distributed using ditch irrigation by moving a 2" water hose from bed to bed. I am sourcing a water pump, lift will be 8 ft from a clear water creek, and pumping distance will be 1000ft, with discharge at low pressure through an open hose. One pump I'm considering would be the 1" pump at the link below, which sells for $215.00. Would you consider this a good buy, or make another suggestion? Thanks Here is a link that might be useful: Wayne 1

The systems that force the cold water back into the cold line are a jury rig solution to eliminate the need for the extra return line. If you are building you can easily put in the return line (and insulate the hot line). There are numerous ways to turn on the circulating pump, from using a light switch (often works well in a bathroom) to timers, motion sensors, etc. If you use low voltage equipment and a relay to switch the pump even the wiring is simplified (think thermostat type wiring with lower voltage and current). If you put eh demand heater in the circulating loop it will be turned on when it detects the flow from the pump and deliver hot water. If things are sized correctly and set up correctly you should have very close tom instant hot water by the time you turn on the sink faucet.

Any centralized heating system without a circ pump will have the same issues. It doesn't matter if it's tank, tankless, etc. you will have to get the cold water out of the lines before you get the hot water. Insulating the pipes will help. Installing the water heater in a central location will help. Making sure that the hot water lines aren't oversized will help. If you have one faucet that is much farther than the others (such as a kitchen sink or a master bath sink) you can consider an electric point of use heater that sits right under the sink and is supplied by the main water heater. That should give you instant hot water until water from the main heater reaches the faucet. There is also a tankless (Navien) that has an integrated circ pump and small tank. They offer a condensing unit that is in the 93%+ efficiency range and vents with plastic pipe. Here is a link that might be useful: Navien tankless

TheRipeTomato: just to clarify, you *are* getting enough pressure from those Rubbermaid "fish barrels" to hand water with a wand? I'm confused, sorry--it seems like you're saying you have a 150 gallon barrel that's not providing pressure, but that you're hand watering with the Rubbermaid bins (which look smaller than 150 gallons). Do you have a pump on the Rubbermaids? If so, what exactly do you use and how are you hooking it up? Sorry for all the questions and thanks in advance.