Water heater/manifold proximity
dfvellone
| Posted in General Questions on
I’ve got a bit of an obstacle that makes installing my home-run plumbing manifold close to the heater pretty tricky.
The only other alternative would have a 15’ run of supply from the heater to the manifold. Is this distance too long to even consider from a practical standpoint?
Thanks, Daniel
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Replies
No
I don't see a problem. The only potential downside would be slightly longer wait times for hot water, assuming you're running larger pipe (1", etc.) between the water heater and the manifold, and smaller runs (1/2", etc.) from the manifold out to individual fixtures. I wouldn't worry about that, just be sure to insulate the supply line between the water heater and the manifold to keep thermal losses under control.
Bill
I have pretty much this exact setup at a rental and hot water wait times are pretty long. That 15' of 3/4 pex holds about 0.3 gallons of water which doesn't seem like a lot. The problem is a typical 2 gpm faucet doesn't flow at very high velocity so instead of the pipe being emptied out as one big slug of cold water, it slowly mixes and warms up as you draw.
Hot water manifold should be close to the tank. Cold water manifold can be anywhere.
A single run off of the remote manifold could be used for a thermosyphon loop back to the hot water heater tank. That woud eliminate the delay getting hot water due to the run of pipe between the manifold and the water heater, at the expense of increased standby losses. There are always tradeoffs, unfortunately.
Bill
Deleted
Nope, ours is about the same. Just as a FYI, homerun + distance to mani = may take a bit longer to get hot water at the faucet.