I have one neighbour, out in the country, that built a small lake on top of a hill. First of all, what kind of thinking is that? Lakes, ponds, tanks, or whatever you want to call them, are built where runoff water will fill them, but what about on top of a hill? The city people keep moving out here to the country, which I have no problem with normally, then spend literally millions on fixing up a showplace complete with lights that stay on all night making their place look like an airport...ok, I'm getting sidetracked. Anyway, they fill the lake with underground wellwater. They come out maybe once a month, but they have to have a full lake to fish in or to just look at. In the recent past drought years, everyone else around them had their stocktanks run dry or get so low that it was undrinkable for livestock, and several wells in the area went completely dry. There are three levels of water here and anyone with a well the same level as the city folks, either lost their wells or had well problems. Does this make sense? Why ruin it for those that need it just so your place looks pretty. Does anyone think anymore? I know of seven places that use wellwater for ponds, all are people who came from the city, and only two are places where the owners live there full time. I know, I sound like I'm against city folks moving out to the country, but I'm not, I'm just stating that people need to consider other peoples needs and use a little common sense. Talk about more money than brains. Absolutely no consideration for anyone else. Kt

I have a Triangle Tube Series 50 (45 gal.) in a 2,000 sf house with 2 bathrooms. My plumber said I should put in a smaller unit and I wanted a bigger one. We compromised on this unit, because he said a bigger one would consume a lot more energy. I take a 25 min shower with a 5 gpm shower head, and I get enough hot water from this unit, but it took some doing. The first thing I would suggest is to turn the temperature on the water heater all the way up. We have an L-shaped ranch with the water heater on one end of the house, and the master bath on the other (over an unheated crawl space). So we need to keep the water very hot to get enough hot water at the bathroom. The hotter the water is, the more cold water you'll mix in, and the longer your hot water will last. Despite this, I was still running out of hot water after about 15 min. As my shower valve doesn't have a volume control, I put a small valve on the shower arm which allowed me to slow down or shut off the water when I was soaping myself. This allowed the hot water to recover a bit before I finished my shower. The real breakthrough came last summer though, when I had a new boiler installed. The installer told me that the circulator pipes between my boiler and water heater were only 3/4", when they should be 1 1/4". He also set up the new boiler so that the water heater gets priority over heat to the house, and the boiler automatically heats up to 180 degrees whenever the unit calls for more hot water. Now I have plenty of hot water for a 25 min shower followed by a shave, even without turning the volume of hot water down during my shower. I think you should be able to get enough hot water out of this unit provided you use it to its full capacity. You may need to have someone do some work on your boiler though. One rule of thumb I live by, is to never let a contractor tell me how much water or hot water I need. Aside from this, do you have separate shower valves for your 2 shower heads, and are you satisfied with the water flow? Many newer shower valves limit the flow to 2.5 gpm or less. You can check your actual water flow with a 2.5 or 5 gal bucket and a stopwatch. If you're getting enough flow out of the shower arms, but not out of the shower heads, there are some places that sell shower heads with easily removable flow restrIctors.

I had a conversation with a local pro, and he believes adding a mixing valve and turning the aquastat up from 100* to something like 140* will do wonders. He said it's normal in any water heater to have much higher temps at the top and lower at the bottom, with the average around the aquastat setting, meaning we have ours turned way down. I'll give that a try. On the DHW priority wiring, I'm having a little difficulty finding straightforward info. Most diagrams/discussions include so many references to controllers and various models of components that I can't tell what the basic schematic should be. Here is my current setup:We have a single circ pump controlled by the boiler control. I just learned that the "DHW End Switch" terminal in my boiler goes to the HydroStat controller and only bypasses the thermal targeting in order to get full power from the boiler during DHW demand. My plan now is to simply add a DPDT relay (in red below) with the coil powered by the aquastat, that disconnects the signal to the two heating zone valves from their thermostats. This will will close those valves while the DHW is heating and create the priority setup. Anyone see any problems with this setup?

"Klem1, what's your point?" If I were to condense it to a single point it would be "common sense will always serve one better than asking strangers on the net". Thee single thing that helps prevent being ripped off by bottom feeders posing as service providers is spend time talking over the fence and on Social media telling neighbors about blood suckers as well as reliable pros instead of chatting with strangers 2k miles away. Although the majority of USA citizens believe they need not make an effort because Big Brother is looking out for them,that's not true. If you want it,go and get it because the yahoos that convinced majority of voters they will handle it are not going to come through when you need them. Have you noticed all the surveys from people you favor by spending money with them? Don't waste your time,give them publicity by word of mouth and other means. One of those "other means" that is underutilized is local news media. Make the effort to get the goods on scammers,outright inept jazz-axes that claim to know what they are doing. If you get 3 or more individuals willing to stand up,you can get a local story. Once news breaks,the contractor will straighten up or get out of business. Often when they go out of business,they start another business and ride it long as possible. Stay on top and twist their tail if they go back to old tricks. Getting back to the problem at hand. Common sense would have a homeowner check and record incoming water temp,check and record temp of supply,run water til burner come's on,turn facuet off until burner go's off, attach a garden hose to a hot faucet,stick hose in 55 gallon barrel with a secound barrelstanding by ,record time (alternatly you fill your tub if you calculate tub capacity (1 cu ft= 7.5 gallons). A helper can man one post or you can run back and forth to see how long til burner come's on and test and record temp on about 5 minute intervals. If temp hold's up after burner come's on (it should) keep testing temp at facuet at 1 minute intervals until it get;s less than would be comfortable for showering. Turn facuet off, record time and record time that burner go's off. Subtract starting cold temp from starting hot temp. Time to burner off and temp differential of hot and cold alow's calculating recovery which is the true test of heater function. A builder grade 50 gallon should heat 40 gallons of 30f incoming to 120f per hour (re-heat cold 50 gal tank 90f above incoming) Those #s will tell a pro where to begin. Nancy that fall's under common sense. I didn't see anyone mention doing or suggesting anything like that. If non of that ring's a bell,perhaps the fact suffing the net for 3 years hasn't solved Daniel's problem so common sense should tell us there must be a better approach. (: