to circulate,or not

[Farmer Don]

Good morning,and thank you for this site. What we did was....started with a 3bd.,2ba,2car garage attached ranch style house. On one end added a 2bd,2ba 784sq.ft.,and turned the 2car garage into a Family room. The laundry rm.,where the hot water tank is, is off the Family room and app. 90 feet to the last shower on line. When they plumbed the new section,(they used PEX) I had them run a separate "hot" water line (not hooked up) with the plan of adding a circulater pump,at a later time .Do you think I wight be better off putting a small (20gal) hot water tank in the crawl space of the new section instead? I am thankful for any advice! We are on a well, but I hate wasting Water! Thank you...Don

[Gary Swart]

My home is not as large as you are describing, but I installed a recirculating system about 4 years ago and really like it.

[jadnashua]

Depends...do you run out of hot water? Adding some capacity with an additional tank has advantages. You could plumb the input to that WH from the hot line to act as a buffer, as 20-gallons isn't much alone (normally can only get 70% out, or 14-gallons which is barely a 5-minute shower). A recirculation system has advantages, too. If you put it on either a demand switch (press it before you want hot and wait a moment), or on a timer, so it is only running when you expect to be using it, it has minimal energy impact.

[Redwood]

Recirculation with occupancy sensors would make you very happy!