Water Heater ?

[mybigchevy]

My water heater has some strange timer and lines hooked to it. I bought this home as a bank repo and have always wondered what this is for ? The plumbing to that timer comes from the cold side of the water heater and goes well ? Does anyone have an idea of what this is for, It is a gas water heater if that makes a difference.

 

[brewchief]

Looks to be a recirc pump to me, When running it should shorten the wait time for hot water at faucets far away from the heater, timer can be set so it only runs times you would normally use hot water in those locations(morning and evening in most cases).

 

[jvitez]

Yup. Recirc pump. And that doesn't mean they perform surgery on Mr. Happy a second time.

There must be return a line somewhere in your plumbing system. A recirc line generally pumps into the cold water input line to force hot water out of the heater, and a return line feeds this hot water back to the cold inlet side. This creates a circuit of hot water continuously looping from tank to farthest hot water faucet and back.

This also acts as a big radiator, so there's continuous heat loss. Not great in a hot climate when you're running AC full tilt. Not such a big deal in cold climates during winter as you're going to be paying for heat one way or the other. The timer is to shut off this heat loss when no hot water will be needed, ie 2400-0700h or something like that.