# 2-water heaters hook-up question



## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

ok guys question for everybody here,ok,picture a building with 4 separate apts. in it,and those apts are all fed with one 50gallon electric water heater,then on the other half of the blding is a beauty shop that is supplied with one 50gallon electric water heater,ok,everything been working fine for couple yrs now,but the beauty shop has gotten busier and busier last few weeks and have ran low of hot water a couple of times so I checked heater out and bottom thermostat was bad so we repaired it,BUT the owner wants to run a line from the hot side of the apt. heater to the hot side of the beauty shop heater to have x-tra water just in case beauty shop needed x-tra hot water,do you think this will work???it seems to me that with pressure on both sides like it will be that it just wont work right like he is thinking it will,just don't seem to me like it will work right.what you all think?????


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## rjbphd (Feb 5, 2010)

sparky said:


> ok guys question for everybody here,ok,picture a building with 4 separate apts. in it,and those apts are all fed with one 50gallon electric water heater,then on the other half of the blding is a beauty shop that is supplied with one 50gallon electric water heater,ok,everything been working fine for couple yrs now,but the beauty shop has gotten busier and busier last few weeks and have ran low of hot water a couple of times so I checked heater out and bottom thermostat was bad so we repaired it,BUT the owner wants to run a line from the hot side of the apt. heater to the hot side of the beauty shop heater to have x-tra water just in case beauty shop needed x-tra hot water,do you think this will work???it seems to me that with pressure on both sides like it will be that it just wont work right like he is thinking it will,just don't seem to me like it will work right.what you all think?????


I thought u were a licensed plumber???


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

rjbphd said:


> I thought u were a licensed plumber???


am,never been confronted with this situation before,if you don't know the answer then don't comment


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## Ptturner91 (Oct 13, 2012)

sparky said:


> ok guys question for everybody here,ok,picture a building with 4 separate apts. in it,and those apts are all fed with one 50gallon electric water heater,then on the other half of the blding is a beauty shop that is supplied with one 50gallon electric water heater,ok,everything been working fine for couple yrs now,but the beauty shop has gotten busier and busier last few weeks and have ran low of hot water a couple of times so I checked heater out and bottom thermostat was bad so we repaired it,BUT the owner wants to run a line from the hot side of the apt. heater to the hot side of the beauty shop heater to have x-tra water just in case beauty shop needed x-tra hot water,do you think this will work???it seems to me that with pressure on both sides like it will be that it just wont work right like he is thinking it will,just don't seem to me like it will work right.what you all think?????


I think it would be too far away and it wouldn't work like he thinks it will


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## rjbphd (Feb 5, 2010)

sparky said:


> am,never been confronted with this situation before,if you don't know the answer then don't comment


 I do know the answer,


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## wyrickmech (Mar 16, 2013)

sparky said:


> ok guys question for everybody here,ok,picture a building with 4 separate apts. in it,and those apts are all fed with one 50gallon electric water heater,then on the other half of the blding is a beauty shop that is supplied with one 50gallon electric water heater,ok,everything been working fine for couple yrs now,but the beauty shop has gotten busier and busier last few weeks and have ran low of hot water a couple of times so I checked heater out and bottom thermostat was bad so we repaired it,BUT the owner wants to run a line from the hot side of the apt. heater to the hot side of the beauty shop heater to have x-tra water just in case beauty shop needed x-tra hot water,do you think this will work???it seems to me that with pressure on both sides like it will be that it just wont work right like he is thinking it will,just don't seem to me like it will work right.what you all think?????


it would be a stretch but you may be able to do the first in last out rule. The balance between the two would be hard to do at a distance


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

Ptturner91 said:


> I think it would be too far away and it wouldn't work like he thinks it will


actually the water heaters are only about 18-20 feet apart in separate rooms,just seems to me that if the beauty shop heater runs out of hot water and tries to draw from the apt. heater that the pressure from the cold water pushin against the hot line from the apt heater wouldn't let it flow like it should without a check valve on it.i never seen or hooked any heaters up like this before,just don't want to get blamed when it don't work like he wants it to.i gave him a definite maybe on whether it would work or not.


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## Ptturner91 (Oct 13, 2012)

sparky said:


> actually the water heaters are only about 18-20 feet apart in separate rooms,just seems to me that if the beauty shop heater runs out of hot water and tries to draw from the apt. heater that the pressure from the cold water pushin against the hot line from the apt heater wouldn't let it flow like it should without a check valve on it.i never seen or hooked any heaters up like this before,just don't want to get blamed when it don't work like he wants it to.i gave him a definite maybe on whether it would work or not.


If there that close to each other you could do reverse return like said above and it should work but if the beauty shop uses up both tanks the apartments won't have hot water too


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## Ptturner91 (Oct 13, 2012)

rjbphd said:


> I do know the answer,


Then why don't you share your knowledge? Not everyone has 30 years of experience I'm sure when you were starting out you didn't know everything, our trade is so diverse some people specialize in different areas


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

rjbphd said:


> I do know the answer,


wellll lets hear it then.


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

Ptturner91 said:


> If there that close to each other you could do reverse return like said above and it should work but if the beauty shop uses up both tanks the apartments won't have hot water too


could I do this and still have both heaters feeding their separate areas as usual???


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## Ptturner91 (Oct 13, 2012)

sparky said:


> could I do this and still have both heaters feeding their separate areas as usual???


No they will both be feeding the entire building


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

Ptturner91 said:


> No they will both be feeding the entire building


yea,for some reason hes not wanting to do it like that,hes in the mindset that a line ran from the hot side of the apt heater to the hot side of the beauty shop heater would act as a "back up" should the beauty shop run more hot water than the heater can manufacture.my question is just by cutting in two tees on both hot sides of the heaters and tieing them together with a single line do any good??I could see maybe it could if you put a check valve behind the tee on the beautyshop heater and also put one on the line that is tieing the 2heaters together.??????????


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## KoleckeINC (Oct 22, 2011)

If one side gets used up, the other side will flow but still mix with the colder side and all youll get is tempered water. How about a storage tank and circ pump? Only with both tanks tied together before any faucets would work.


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

KoleckeINC said:


> If one side gets used up, the other side will flow but still mix with the colder side and all youll get is tempered water. How about a storage tank and circ pump? Only with both tanks tied together before any faucets would work.


thanks so much,this is what I was wondering also,and no they don't want to spend that kind of money right now,what I think I will recommend to him is go ahead and tie them together like hes wanting and then install a shut-off valve right before the tee on the hot side of the beauty shop heater and the women in the shop can go over and close the valve should they notice they are running low of hot water.


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## Ptturner91 (Oct 13, 2012)

sparky said:


> thanks so much,this is what I was wondering also,and no they don't want to spend that kind of money right now,what I think I will recommend to him is go ahead and tie them together like hes wanting and then install a shut-off valve right before the tee on the hot side of the beauty shop heater and the women in the shop can go over and open the valve should they notice they are running low of hot water.


But it won't be hot water it will mix with the cold from the other tank


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

Ptturner91 said:


> But it won't be hot water it will mix with the cold from the other tank


no,what im sayin is to go ahead and run the line from the apt heater over to the beautyshop heater and tie it into the hot side of that heater,but there will be a shut off valve before the tee in effect shutting off the hot water on the beautyshop heater leaving the only flowing water will be the hot water from the apt. heater.then when the shop gets slow later that day or whatever they can go and open that valve after the beautyshop heater has had time to recover.this way it will eliminate the cold water mixing with the hot. dam that's confusing as hell.:laughing:


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## Ptturner91 (Oct 13, 2012)

sparky said:


> no,what im sayin is to go ahead and run the line from the apt heater over to the beautyshop heater and tie it into the hot side of that heater,but there will be a shut off valve before the tee in effect shutting off the hot water on the beautyshop heater leaving the only flowing water will be the hot water from the apt. heater.then when the shop gets slow later that day or whatever they can go and open that valve after the beautyshop heater has had time to recover.this way it will eliminate the cold water mixing with the hot. dam that's confusing as hell.:laughing:


Yeah that really is all that effort when you could do it right eh? Oh well whatever makes the customer happy hopefully they don't start using up all the apartments hot water, or forget to turn it back to there tank haha


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

Ptturner91 said:


> Yeah that really is all that effort when you could do it right eh? Oh well whatever makes the customer happy hopefully they don't start using up all the apartments hot water, or forget to turn it back to there tank haha


YES,thats the kicker right there,you nailed it brother,dont know what else to do,they don't want to pay a lot to do it right.thanks for the help appreciate it very much:thumbup:


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## PlumberJoeOk (Nov 18, 2013)

What if you just tee off the apartment HOT side of heater and ran it to the salon INLET side of heater.. That way the tank is being filled w hot water as they are using it


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

PlumberJoeOk said:


> What if you just tee off the apartment HOT side of heater and ran it to the salon INLET side of heater.. That way the tank is being filled w hot water as they are using it


wouldn't the hot and cold water be mixing if we did it that way???


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## Coolcanuck (Jan 30, 2012)

Aside from the obvious issues of separate buildings, best would be to run the water heaters in parallel. Salon high use would be during the day and building during the evening etc.

I've also installed some thermostatic valves for salons so they can increase hwt temps, customers were happy on 2 different jobs.


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## Letterrip (Jul 28, 2013)

Am I reading this right?? ONE 50 gallon electric water heater serving FOUR apartments??? Now they want to ask that heater to function as a booster to the salon as well??? Why not replace the heater in the salon with a larger one?? How much more would that cost really??


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

Letterrip said:


> Am I reading this right?? ONE 50 gallon electric water heater serving FOUR apartments???


yes,this is correct,and for the record I asked the same thing,but the owner said he has never had a complaint as of yet from anyone in the apts,remember,this is Kentucky,and these people in these apts are not your top of the line rich people,and I don't think they take that many showers/baths if you want to know what I think,and there is only one washer/dryer for all 4 apts. to do laundry.so they are not using very much hot water at all.that the main reason he wanting to tie it into the beauty shop water heater so it can in effect "back it up".i know its a crazy thing here that for sure.

oh and I am in the process of trying to talk him into replacing the water heater @ beauty shop to a larger one but he gonna get all he can out of it,bein it all rental property.you know how that goes.


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## jigs-n-fixtures (Feb 22, 2014)

I would recommend installing a tempering valve at the beauty shop, and bumping up the thermostat. It will be easier, and less expensive to install, and work better. 

Will two heaters in parallel gain you any increased heating capacity? You would need to draw a resistance diagram to be sure.

Small petty people have small petty Gods.


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## Ghostmaker (Jan 12, 2013)

First in last out so both tanks would be self balancing.


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## rjbphd (Feb 5, 2010)

Ghostmaker said:


> First in last out so both tanks would be self balancing.


 Facepalmed...


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## Letterrip (Jul 28, 2013)

Thanks for the bump. I forgot about this. Any update sparky??


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## deerslayer (Mar 29, 2012)

sparky said:


> yea,for some reason hes not wanting to do it like that,hes in the mindset that a line ran from the hot side of the apt heater to the hot side of the beauty shop heater would act as a "back up" should the beauty shop run more hot water than the heater can manufacture.my question is just by cutting in two tees on both hot sides of the heaters and tieing them together with a single line do any good??I could see maybe it could if you put a check valve behind the tee on the beautyshop heater and also put one on the line that is tieing the 2heaters together.??????????


Chances are it won't do anything the heater closest to the salon will be the heater that draws water due to less resistance in the line.

Explain to your customer that it just won't work the way he thinks it will.

Offer multiple solutions
repipe first in last out with both heater
Replace heater with higher KW and or btu 
turn up heater and install tempering valve


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

Letterrip said:


> Thanks for the bump. I forgot about this. Any update sparky??


not yet,tryin to talk owner into putting new heater in for beauty shop and install it next to the apt heater and then tie them together so entire blding will be served by both heaters.


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

deerslayer said:


> Chances are it won't do anything the heater closest to the salon will be the heater that draws water due to less resistance in the line.
> 
> Explain to your customer that it just won't work the way he thinks it will.
> 
> ...


im with ya on this,bout got him convinced that it wont work and be waste of money,need to install new heater next to apt heater and tie them together to feed entire blding.

thanks to everyone for helping out on this one,i have drawn it out and gone over it in my head and im like yall,just don't think it will work as he believes it would.


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