New research about those dang Recirc pumps

Several articles on this site and others talk about how wasteful hot water recirculation pumps can be, both in terms of wasted electricity (running the pumps even when you’re on vacation or sound asleep) and wasted natural gas (reheating the water after it cools down running through the plumbing in your home).

This has become even more egregious as we get a better understanding of the climate impact of methane (aka natural gas).

Now there’s new research that quantifies how wasteful these are: see this wonderful blog post by Pierre Delforge at the NRDC, which references this detailed research report on the topic by Energy Solutions.

Consider a demand-based recirc pump to get your hot water quickly without wasting energy or water. We have one of these in our house and it only took the family a week to get used to pushing the button before hopping into the shower.