dahillner
September 3rd, 2005, 10:46 AM
Looking at providing a second water heater for an 89 gallon jacuzzi tub. I know I shouldn't need an 80 gallon tank since there will be some mix of cold and hot going into the tub but since this tub is going into a finished attic suite I thought I should use it to provide all the hot water up there (jacuzzi tub / separate shower / sink) rather than route hot water lines up from the water heater in the basement.
I have two questions:
1) How big should the second water heater be? I currently have an 80 gallon water heater in the basement supplying 3 full bathrooms, 2 kitchens, 1 washer and 1 dishwasher. So far I have not had a hot water demand problem, but then again rarely do all of these items get used at once (at most 2 showers with laundry and dishwasher running...). I know however, that an 89 gallon tub will knock that down quite a bit and would need to provide supplemental hot water for that. One thing to note, we probably won't be using the jacuzzi tub that often but I'd still like things to be sized appropriately just in case.
2) What's the best way to insert this into my system? I've though about putting the extra water heater "in series" with the current unit so that there is adequate supply for everything during extreme cases like holidays where 8-10 family members stay with us (lots of shower use). Is this allowable or do I have to isolate each water heater to its own hot water circuit. Also if I can do this do I supply the second heater with hot water from the first one. It seems if I used a separate cold water supply whenever one tank emptied it could end up sending cold water to a fixture even though the other tank still had water (kind of a "path of least resistance" thing).
I have two questions:
1) How big should the second water heater be? I currently have an 80 gallon water heater in the basement supplying 3 full bathrooms, 2 kitchens, 1 washer and 1 dishwasher. So far I have not had a hot water demand problem, but then again rarely do all of these items get used at once (at most 2 showers with laundry and dishwasher running...). I know however, that an 89 gallon tub will knock that down quite a bit and would need to provide supplemental hot water for that. One thing to note, we probably won't be using the jacuzzi tub that often but I'd still like things to be sized appropriately just in case.
2) What's the best way to insert this into my system? I've though about putting the extra water heater "in series" with the current unit so that there is adequate supply for everything during extreme cases like holidays where 8-10 family members stay with us (lots of shower use). Is this allowable or do I have to isolate each water heater to its own hot water circuit. Also if I can do this do I supply the second heater with hot water from the first one. It seems if I used a separate cold water supply whenever one tank emptied it could end up sending cold water to a fixture even though the other tank still had water (kind of a "path of least resistance" thing).