Smart Recirculation Control by Leridian Dynamics

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

One of my customers has asked me to look into this device for hot water circulation. Curious if anyone has tried it out. Seems like a good design.

Thank you!

https://www.smartrecirculationcontrol.com/

hot_rod

A little bit of scare tactic here about pinholes?
All caps and an exclamation point😉

And OSHA is recommending running 24/7 for anti legionella protection. I’m not sure if that is for residential applications also?

Larry Weingarten

Hi, gothotwater.com came up with the idea and has licensed it to others like Taco and Grundfos if I'm remembering correctly. An advantage of the original demand control, where you press a remote button, is that you are not already at the sink or shower, waiting for hot water. Pressing a button primes the line, which then remains hot for a while. Seems to me that using a flow sensor is a disadvantage both in terms of time spent waiting and water waste. Also, the 90 day warranty seems a bit weak. Just two cents...

Yours, Larry

retiredguy

I have a dedicated hot water re-circulation line in my home that utilizes a bronze B&G pump that consumes 39 watts of power/hour. I run the pump for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening plus 15 minutes each hour during the day. This installation gives me almost instant hot water for the majority of the day and consumes less than 300 watts per day. The electrical hook-up is with a cheap plug in timer and a plug-in electric cord to the pump for people who live in an area with strict codes where a registered electrician is needed to change a light bulb. Simple, cheap and geared towards a DIY project.

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

@retiredguy That's pretty much the way I've been installing them, but a lot of my customers want to be able to control everything in their house on their iPhone.

And I don't like the idea that you have to use a high flow, watt hungry pump to make it all work.

Larry Weingarten

Hi @Alan (California Radiant) Forbes , I've been privy to testing done to determine the efficiency of different recirc loop control strategies, and true demand pumping uses the least amount of energy overall. Between pumping energy and heat loss from the piping, demand control uses about 10% of the energy of any other system. Demand controlled systems generally run minutes a day, vs hours for temperature or timer based arrangements.

Yours, Larry

STEVEusaPA

I do something similar to that at my house. Flow switch, run the pump for 30 seconds, lock out pump for 5 minutes. Mostly to get hot water to the MBathroom quickly, otherwise it was taking almost a minute to get hot water there.

tooltimetaylor

Larry Weingarten said:

Hi, gothotwater.com came up with the idea and has licensed it to others like Taco and Grundfos if I'm remembering correctly. An advantage of the original demand control, where you press a remote button, is that you are not already at the sink or shower, waiting for hot water. Pressing a button primes the line, which then remains hot for a while. Seems to me that using a flow sensor is a disadvantage both in terms of time spent waiting and water waste. Also, the 90 day warranty seems a bit weak. Just two cents...

Yours, Larry

You must have read that too fast, it's a 90-day return policy and a 3-year warranty. It looks to me like you're not wasting water because you're supposed to turn the faucet on then off to trigger the pump (like buttons do), but you're not leaving the water running.

tooltimetaylor

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes said:

One of my customers has asked me to look into this device for hot water circulation. Curious if anyone has tried it out. Seems like a good design.

Thank you!

https://www.smartrecirculationcontrol.com/

Did you end up trying this? If you did, what did you think?

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

Can you believe it? Me, Mr. Nice Guy had a falling out with this customer.

I did the preliminary work on the return line to the boiler room, but someone else installed the pump, so I can’t say how well it works. 

tooltimetaylor

Well, that sucks. Sorry to hear it. I feel your pain.