The time it takes for the hot water to get to your faucets or shower is related to the distance the water has to travel from the hot water source to the sink and the diameter of the hot water building supply pipe (typically 3/4 inch) as well as the feeder pipe to the sink (typically 1/2 inch). A 3/4 inch pipe holds about 8 ounces of water for every 3 feet of pipe. So if your tank (or tankless) unit is 90 feet away from a faucet, you would have to push out about 1.8 gallons of cold water (plus whatever water is in the feeder pipe, a 6 foot section of 1/2 inch pipe holds about 8 ounces of water) before the hot flows. A typical sink faucet will run at 1.5 gallons per minute maximum flow rate - so you are looking at over 1 minute to get hot water in this scenario. With tankless units, there is also a small delay between the time the unit senses water flowing through it (which triggers it to fire) and the time the unit heats the water up to the set temperature. There are 3 ways you can eliminate the long delay. The first is to put a hot water source (tank or tankless unit) closer to the sinks that are far away from the current source. The second way is to use point of use hot water generators under key sinks that you use. These POU units are very small tanks or tankless units designed to service just once sink. The last method is to install a recirculating loop where you constantly circulate hot water through the hot water building supply. I have a Rinnai tankless system that we installed in the basement directly below the master bathroom. From the time I turn on a shower or sink, hot water is flowing within 10 seconds. That was the good news. The bad news was that the kitchen sink and 3 other sinks that we use often are over 120 feet away from the Rinnai tankless units. Just before we finished the house, we discovered that it was taking several minutes to get hot water at the kitchen sink - and that was unacceptable to us. I wound up installing a recirculting loop. This was not the way I would have preferred to do it, but space and venting in the basement on that side of the house was an issue. You could just live with the delay you have - 1 minute isn't that bad. If you decide to fix the delay, I recommend posting some details on the plumbing forum and seeking advice on how best to correct.

Well thank y'all for that. BAMA - I've been wondering if we'd ever see you post again - missing you a lot. I forgot to mention that the flowers standing on the right are a gift from BAMA. They cover the electric cord nicely. Yeah, CALAM - my back yard is very small. Ever since I put the path of rocks in to the grotto, Toby does his business on it every day. It's as if he is kneeling at the altar. Bratty dawg! The blower takes care of that little cleaning problem - no breaking him of that habit.

Thank you so much, junco! Yes, those are hostas - now that I googled the name. :-) I wish I knew that much. They too look a bit scorched so perhaps they are all showing the effects of a hot summer when nobody bothered to water them. Hopefully they will come back OK next spring. It is really helpful to know that it is fine to wait and see what happens next Spring. If the plants come back fine in the Spring, do you have any tips for maximizing bloom? I don't think they bloomed at all last year either. Unfortunately, I don't have an irrigation system in that area but i do have a hose on the deck so I will just have to pay attention to the weather and water as needed, which should be a major improvement from "never". Trouble is if we are gone again to stay with family overseas, I will have to entrust someone with watering the garden at least once in a while. Will also do the weed pulling by hand - myself. I can certainly take 2 hours. That small fern that shows up in the picture...I am pretty sure it was not designed to be there. :-) I love big hydrangea bushes and have always wondered how some get so big, These two plants we have never grew beyond their initial size - which is not very large. Thank you so much!

lacey - it does seem that we're all in one of those 'blocking' weather patterns again where the same weather conditions just sit there week after week! :-( On the whole - as long as it doesn't last for too long - I prefer the dry to constant rain. The wet is likely to do more damage to plants and property than dry will in the short term. Today is supposed to be more hot and humid than yesterday here, with another bad day for tomorrow and then back to more seasonally normal temperatures - but still no rain in the forecast other than the 40% chance of showers on Friday. It used to be that hot, humid days ended with a thunderstorm bringing a good rain. That doesn't seem to happen much anymore. We haven't had a thunderstorm here yet this year.