Why Wait For Hot Water? Install A Recirculating Pump
I hate waiting...for food, for stoplights, and hot water. If you live in a house where the master shower is at the far end of the house and the water heater is at the other end, you're going to do some waiting too. Save yourself a little agony and think about installing a water recirculation pump.
A water recirculation pump creates a loop in your house, where you ordinarily wouldn't have a loop. When a house is built to accommodate a hot water recirculation system, a loop is built into the house and then the plumbing fixtures are branched off of this loop. However, with a retrofit type system, we have to create a loop using a cold water line.
The pump can be mounted under the sink farthest away from the water heater or at the water heater itself. When the retrofit pump unit is installed at the water heater, a pipe is installed at the sink farthest away from the water heater that essentially connects the hot and cold water lines at that fixture.
The idea behind creating a hot water circulation loop is much better than cutting up walls and re-piping the house right? Well, you will have to tolerate losing a cold water line though. It's best to install the pump (or the pipe, depending on which style you have) under a bathroom sink that has two sinks in the bathroom. This is because you will lose the cold water in whichever sink you decide to install this. When I say "lose", I don't mean it will be totally gone, but remember how long you had to wait to get hot water? Well you will have to wait about that long to get cold after you install the pump system. You will have to clear out all the hot water so that the cold can make it's way to the faucet. That's why I suggest installing it under a double vanity sink, if you want cold water immediately, just take 2 steps and there it is. Once you've decided to save thousands of gallons of water annually, read this article on how to install a water recirculating pump.