When you need hot water, how long do you stand by the faucet, running the water and waiting for it to reach the right temperature? Many homeowners spend quite a while, running a lot of water straight down the drain. In fact, according to one estimate, homeowners waste as much as 40 gallons of water each day. There is a solution that can help you waste less water though, and it is called a hot water recirculation pump. A hot water recirculation pump might be set up with a dedicated loop where the hot water constantly circulates from your water heater in a pipe that passes each faucet in your home. This will allow you to have instant access to hot water when you open the valve. While this will require some extra energy to pump the water through this line, it doesn’t require a lot to run.

The other option is an integrated loop that only comes on when the water in the hot water pipe drops below a certain temperature, and it returns the water to the hot water heater through the cold water pipes. This does result in a temporary increase in temperature of the cold water, but it will drop back down quickly.