Customer Reviews

Watts 500800 Premier Hot Water Recirculation Pump, Blue

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I don't know why few stores carry this and few people are aware of this great product, including those sales persons in home improvement stores. It gives instant warm water to all the rooms in your house, it saves 10,000 gallons water a year (really, I measured and calculated) and it is so easy to install.

Doubt about if it really works? Try this: go to the farthest faucet in your house and open the hot water. Once the water becomes hot, close it, but not fully, leaving a very small stream. Now go to other faucets and open hot water, you bet, instant hot water! It'll keep this way as long as you keep that small stream flowing.

The problem is that small stream goes wasted. How about recycle it into the hot water heater? Sure, but how? The hot and cold water lines have the same pressure, therefore water cannot go from the hot line into the cold line. What if I add a pump into the hot line? Exactly, that's what this Watts product does. Problem solved.

For a practical and fine product, Watts also add a temperature sensor, so the recirculation only happens when the hot line becomes not so warm. This, plus the stream is really small, adds very small extra energy cost to the heater.

The pump is very small, only 25 watts, using less electricity than a lighting bulb. There is also a 24-hr timer (in 15-minutes increments), allowing you to shut the entire system off during the periods when you do not use warm water, such as sleep and work times. This reduces even further the already very small added energy cost. BTW, the pump is thoroughly quiet, no audible noise at all.

An alternative product is the Laing Autocirc. It is a single piece can all be installed under a sink, could be a better choice for some people. The downside is you need (to add) a AC socket there to power the pump. The upside is the pump does not operate continuously like the Watts; it is controlled by the temperature sensor and thus turns on only when water becomes not so warm. Might save some more Watts than the Watts. Both are available in Home Depot stores.

I cannot think of a single reason not to install such a system into any house. Instant hot water without any side effect or significantly added extra energy cost and saving tons of water each and every year. I wish I have done this long ago and this product will be more widely spread.

PS, a tip: before you start the installation, go to Rite Aid or alike store and buy a pack of Hose Washers for $0.99 (e.g. Plumb Craft by Waxman, 74-114, 6 pieces). After you unplugged the hose from the heater and before you plug it to the pump, you should remove the old washer and use 1 or, if the old one is very thick, 2 of the new washers (I had to use 2). The old washer was usually hardened by the high temperature; if you don't replace it, it will leak water. The menu does not mention this, so I learned this the hard way. BTW, hey Watts: for a $200 product, such washers should have been included.

We purchased this product to try to be more "green" about our water usage. While the product should be able to do what it states, it is going back tomorrow. After installing it, we were getting hot water in the cold water line (despite running the valve test they recommend in the manual). After waiting on hold for awhile, I reached someone who explained that if we had single handled faucets from any of a few manufactures the system would not work. They explained that these faucets would let water flow from the hot to the cold side when the pressure was raised on the hot water supply (which is how this system works). The only fix is to replace a part in the faucet (if available) or replace the faucet. Since this affects six faucets in our house that are too old to get new parts, we are done. I have no problem with this restriction, but it is not listed ANYWHERE, including their web site and instructions. Given that I now have a piece missing from my hot water supply line, it is a little late to tell me now. I give the product an `A' for what it will do, but I give the company an `F' for their documentation and lack of disclosure of a major problem. This is too major (and common) and issue to not tell people about up-front. I feel mislead by Watts.

I bought the Watts Premier hot water recirculating system and let me tell you it works great! I did not notice my gas (heating) bill going up significantly at all. It was well worth the investment as far as I am concerned for convenience and saving water.

The only negative thing I can say about it is that the remote stop valve did fail. There was not a whole lot of information about this problem with this system to be found, even on the internet, so I didn't know what was going wrong at first. But slowly it seemed like there was a lot of hot water on the cold side when we turned the cold water on. It was more and more as time went on. And the valve became noisy and sounded like water was going through it all the time. I finally called Watts customer service. After being on hold for a half and hour, I talked to a rep who confirmed to me that the stop valve was failing. They were willing to send me a replacement, but I had to either send the old one back first or pay for one and get a credit after I sent the old one back. They said they are very strict about this because there is only a one year warranty on the valve and people were always calling in trying to get a free replacement after the valve failed or get extra valves when needed.

Because he didn't sound very concerned, I then asked if this was a common problem and he admitted then that YES the valves do inevitably fail. It could be 6 months or a year or two years, three years.... who knows? But they do fail and it's just a matter of time. They really aren't made to last very long. But they are made to last at least a year- long enough to expire the warranty period.

They don't tell you that when you buy it, of course and it doesn't say it in the manual. They mention doing a stop valve test, but they pretty much play it down. Make it sound like "in the rare case" if it fails.... But the truth is that it DEFINITELY will fail, so you really should have an extra one on hand because this whole system relies on this little valve made of plastic. It is unserviceable and who knows what's inside. But it is made of plastic and looks cheap, but actually they want 34.00 a pop for it if you buy it alone or $60.00 in the kit form with the replacement hoses. It really shouldn't be more than 5 bucks. For $34., in my opinion, they should be able to make it with better quality to last much longer like most other plumbing materials- how about some copper and brass? And they do put serial numbers on these cheap little plastic valves just so they can make sure you are not within your short warranty period so they can charge you. So this is the downside -that this stop valve is a little money maker for them that turns you into a repeat customer- kind of like their water filtration systems. Got to keep buying those replacement filters and you know they strategically engineer them to only last so long and unserviceable.

Other than that, it's a good system and does work very well when this valve works. But when it fails (not if, but when), not only are you wasting water again as you wait for the hot water to clear out of the cold side, but you are also wasting much heat energy to boot. So you just have to shut it off and it is no good until you get it fixed. So if you buy one of these, go in with your eyes open and keep an extra valve on hand.

More so, some applications require multiple stop valves depending the way your house is plumbed, which will complicate matters even more. If you require multiple stop valves at different locations, then any one of them can go out at any time and so you should keep multiple extra valves on hand just in case to keep the system working properly. They tend to go out gradually over time like mine did. That may become quite costly and cumbersome. In that regard, I think Watts has a responsibility to their customers to step up the quality of these stop valves. The quality of these valves should at least equal the quality of the pumps that work with them.

The other way to avoid having to use the stop valve is to plumb in a return line back to the water heater from the furthest point. Long term, it may be worth this investment. Either way, I think the hot water system is wonderful to have and I am hooked on it. If not for the valve problem, I would have given it 5 stars. Hope this helps!!

I installed one of these Sunday since I was tired of running the shower 1 1/2 minutes to get hot water up to my 3rd floor bathroom. It does work, but there are issues.

First, the sensor valve setpoint is fairly low, I am guessing about 90-95. So the recirc stops when it reaches that temp. The really hot water is still back down the pipe a good ways. I suspect they do this to avoid scalding but in practice this make scalding more likely. That is if you get in the shower immediately because the water will keep getting hotter for awhile requiring that you adjust the faucet... or get scalded. So I still need to run the water awhile to get it hot.

Second, there is a certain amount of natural circulation that occurs even with the recirc pump off. It seems to happen more when the hot water heater is active like when running the laundry or whatever. Just creating a high temp diferential in the HW heater provides enough head to move water a bit. It isn't a prolem in the winter but in the summer the additional heat loss from the pipes will add to the A/C bills. I have a workaround planned to fix this.

Also, the timer is very lame. Better just to turn the recirc pump "on" then control it through an X10 or Insteon timer and appliance module. Then the typical usage periods can be set to automatic and the recirc pump can be turned on and off manually with a keypad or remote for usages outside the programmed times.

Not perfect, but a worthwhile add on.

I installed the Watts recirculating pump November '07, along with under sink mix valve kit in the kitchen. I bought an extra valve kit for the master bathroom sink. The pump timer was set for the busiest times of day. There was a nearly immediate improvement in hot water at both faucets, which was glorious! The cold water side runs warmer, but so what? But the story gets more interesting:

Being an engineer I was always a bit curious why the pump was necessary, since a law of thermodynamics states that heat always flows toward cold. Theoretically, the mix valves under the sinks ought to function without the pump. Well, one day I unplugged the timer to see what would happen. You know what? The faucets produced hot water just as fast without the pump running! Now we leave the pump off all the time. My advice is to save yourselves money and just purchase the undersink valve kits (about $50 each). The pump can always be added later if you find it's still necessary. Maybe some water systems require the pump. Hope this helps!

I have been wanting to purchase one of these units for years but seemed to put if off because they are not cheap. I finally decided to purchase one and began checking out the different models available, decided on this pump and shopped around for price. Amazon had the best price, so I went ahead and made the purchase. It was not difficult at all to install and it works incredibly well, in fact it is amazing. Before I installed this product, we would honestly have to have the hot water in our bathroom running for probably three to four minutes before we got our hot water. Now, it's there within a few seconds. When I think of wasting that amount of water for the seven years we have lived in our home, I feel a bit ashamed. The only difference I notice is that you can hear a very faint swishing noise through the pipes when the pump is on. It's not a big deal and is worth the time wasted waiting for hot water and not wasting water any longer. The only complaint I have and actually, there is no practical way they could have engineered it any differently....is the fact that when you have to set the times on the dial for the operation, it's a little difficult because the timer is on the unit...which is installed on top of the water heater...which is up rather high...and the printing is rather small. Once it's set, you are not home free because if you have an electrical outage, you have to reset it unless you decide to have it run 24-7. I have ours set to come on about half an hour before showers start in the morning and shut off about bed time. Over all, I would not want to be without mine, thus a 5 star rating. Hope this helps....

I purchased this a few weeks ago. How it works is a pump is added to the hot water line above the water heater, and this pump pressurizes the hot water line slightly more than the cold. Here where I live a building permit is needed to install one of these, but installation is pretty easy. Also where I live, the water department will reimburse the cost of these because they save water.

Thats the good news, they do save water. But the downside, they can really use lots of extra gas or electricity to heat your water.

You install a mixing valve at the furthest faucet in your house. Since the hot water pressure is now slightly higher due to the pump, the mixing values lets the cold "hot water" flow until the hot water arrives. When the hot water arrives at the faucet, the valve closes. Hot water cools, the valve opens again. So yes, you will have hot water at that faucet, but a constant trickle of hot water is required from your hot water heater to make this happen. This can cause your hot water heater to have to heat hundreds of gallons of hot water over time. So you save water, it it costs you gas.

There is another problem. When you turn on the hot water its warm, not hot. This is because if the mixing valve only closed when the water was very hot, there would be lots of very warm water pushed into your cold water lines, which would waste more hot water.

One final problem, in my house, I need to install 4 mixing valves to get instant warm water in most places. This cost an extra $120 for 3 more mixing valves.

So overall its a good product if you understand it and use it with care. If your not careful, the added water heating costs can far exceed the cost of the water which was saved.

I just installed two of these in my home. That's because I have two water heaters. I have city water but drain into a septic system. The house is a ranch style so it takes a few minutes to get hot water into the showers in the morning. After installing these recirculation pumps I now get hot water in about 13 seconds. I estimate that in our household we will be saving at least 400 gallons of water a month. (1.5 gpm/shower head times 5 people).

What's in the box is not everything you need. I have copper plumbing, so I had to buy threaded fittings to hook up to the pump. That required me to solder in these fitting to the copper pipes. I'm a handy guy and able to do this, but some people will need to hire a plumber. Once the pump was in, the thermostatically controlled jumper must be installed under the sink the furtherest from the water heater. I was able to install each system in about an hour. The pumps are very quiet and I was fortunate to have electrical outlets near each water heater.

I will write back in a few months if anything changes but for now I am very happy with this product and expect to see a good change in my water bill. But most importantly, I have reduced the load on my septic system.

I installed the system two days ago and so far the results are great. I went from getting hot water in 1 minute to having hot water in 2 seconds at my kitchen sink. I need to install the additional sensor valves to get hot water at other locations.

Installation took about 20 minutes, porbably could have been faster if I was trying. I only needed 1 wrench to do the entire install, though a second smaller wrench would have been easier. If you can change a facuet, you can do this no problem. If you can change a garden hose, you can still do it. Read the directions, they are only one page long.

The only downside I think this product may have is that it might require the hot water heater to work a little more, since the discharge water goes into the cold water line. In theory the hot should eventually circle back to the hot water heater, but I am doubtful that is happening. Someday I might experiment to figure that out. For now I will just watch the gas bill and make sure it doesn't jump up.

This is a great product! It works just as it is supposed to. I installed it myself with out any problems. However, it did take some plumbing skill and tools to do so. My house has the water heater a good distance away from the master bath. It took several mnutes or running the water to get hot water to come up. After installing the circulator the problem is solved. I have hot water as soon as I open the faucet. Why did I wait so long to get one! I wasted thousands of gallons of water.

On tip; If you overtightened the adapters on the valve the rubber washers close of the water chanel and diminish your flow. I backed them off and have the same flow rate I did before.

A great product!