hot water route from boiler

[chrisw99]

We had a combi boiler fitted in December 2017. I'm happy with it so far, except for one thing - the length of time it takes hot water to reach the bathroom.

We only have 3 hot water taps in the house: kitchen, bathroom basin and bath. ( Shower is electric and runs off cold). Also had a hot water pipe into the garage to feed a washing machine (in the days they had hot/cold inputs) - no longer used.

When the boiler was put in, as there was already a hot water pipe in the garage (the one to the washing machine), the hot water output from the boiler was connected to this. This then goes into the kitchen and then a long windy road through the house to the bathroom.

The upshot of this is - kitchen tap, great, hot in about 5 seconds. Bathroom taps, hot in about 45-60 seconds.

Bath isn't a problem - turn on the tap and put the plug in, the water gets too hot and needs a bit of cold anyway so the first 45 seconds of cold don't really matter.

The problem is just washing hands in the bathroom, no one ever hangs around 60 seconds to wait for it to get hot and just ends up washing whilst it's cold - wasting gas as you may as well have used the cold tap.

The ironic thing is the boiler is on the internal garage wall, literally 4 feet from the bathroom basin on the other side of the wall. Which got me thinking - is there any reason why I can't just add a T-junction on the hot water pipe coming out of the boiler and take a new pipe through straight to the bathroom basin tap? The hot water tees off in several places anyway further downstream, I've just never seen one tee off straight after coming out of the boiler.

 

[chrisw99]

Sorry - forgot the actual point of my question... I know I could tee off and feed a standalone tap, it's no different than the kitchen tap coming off the pipes just earlier, but if I was to connect it into the bathroom hot water pipes (so it could feed the bath as well), this creates a circuit around the house back to the boiler, rather than it being like a tree, lots of junctions but all ending at taps.

Does this cause problems?

 

[Hot&Cold]

We had a combi boiler fitted in December 2017. I'm happy with it so far, except for one thing - the length of time it takes hot water to reach the bathroom.

converting a non combination boiler to a combination boiler may well have some compromises,

We had a combi boiler fitted in December 2017

Has the length of time changed from the installation date,pray tell

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

By all means change the route to shorten the distance from boiler to tap, but you really want to remove and 'dead legs' (lengths of pipe that are now redundant), to avoid any stagnating water, and really just have one continuous run to the furthest tap. Having a loop around the house is not going to achieve anything in this situation, and may actually partially defeat the object of what you're trying to achieve, find the point where the existing feed to the bathroom comes off after the last outlet, and cap it there.

 

[chrisw99]

Cheers. The reason this wasn't done at installation was simply due to the bathroom having a tiled floor and not really wanting to go to the trouble of going under it to get at the existing pipes - there was a suitable hot water pipe to connect to in the garage so it saved a lot of work.
But a year of not really having hot water in the bathroom tap has got me thinking...

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

There's only so long you can put up with something, until it bugs you that much you simply have to do something about it! Girlfriends house is the same, takes about half hour to get hot water at the kitchen tap, I suspect the 22mm pipe from the days of the cylinder is still in situ, and has to be emptied of cold water before any hot can get through. Landlord's Plumber has told him it's ok, so nothing will be done.

 

[Bodd]

Its one thing I always point out before choosing a combi for the job. If there is room and access I will advise a Cylinder with Secondary return.

But the boat has sailed so just try to make route from boiler to tap as short as possible.

 

[chrisw99]

The hot water cylinder was removed and the pipe that connected it to the bathroom was capped as close to the bathroom as possible - there's a "dead leg" about 2 feet long, that can't yet be removed till I next go under the bathroom floor.