No hot water in part of the sinks upstairs


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Old 01-17-20, 09:00 PM
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No hot water in part of the sinks upstairs

Hot water heater is 80 gallons on the downstairs with a circulation pump.

All sinks/showers in 3 bathrooms down stairs have hot water.

Kitchen and Laundry (uptstairs) have hot water

All sinks/showers in 3 bathrooms upstairs have warm water only even after running it for over 15 minutes only having the hot water side on.

I noticed when the circulation pump is on the return pipe only gets warm and never hot. All the items that I said were hot above gets to hot without the circulation pump been on.

House has gone to some remodeling not sure if these bathrooms ever got hot water since the remodeling.

House was built in 1976 I am in Texas.
 
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Old 01-18-20, 05:53 AM
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Is it possible that there is a hose type Y connector anywhere between a hot and cold tap or a sink with two taps and a single outlet connected to a hose?
This is quite common in commercial settings where someone wants to mix hot and cold water for a bucket.

Also, did you try shutting off the circ pump to see if hot water reaches all of the taps?
Could someone have made an error in connecting the circ pump during one of the remodels?
 
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Old 01-20-20, 07:05 AM
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Hello GregH,

Thank you for the reply.

I don't think I have a Y connector. If I shut down the hot water the sinks everywhere do not run on the hot side. Which leads me to believe the hot water pipe is connected correctly on those bathrooms.

Here is a very crude drawing. I am not sure how long the circulation loop is or how close it is to each faucet.



I have shutdown the circulation pump and there is no difference.

I have also closed the green valves on the diagram above the hot water return of the pump and I get no water from the hot end (which to me is strange, since I would assume the top of the heater would still have pressure.) in ALL the hot water faucets.

I would appreciate any theories. What am I not getting here?
 
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Old 01-20-20, 10:14 AM
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I have also closed the green valves on the diagram above the hot water return of the pump and I get no water from the hot end
This is definitely odd and implies to me that another valve must be closed somewhere.
I believe most/all circ pumps also include a check valve to prevent lukewarm water from the bottom of the tank being pulled in.

I would turn off the green valves and troubleshoot from there. There's no reason all the faucets shouldn't get hot water with the circ loop disabled.
 
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Old 01-20-20, 07:09 PM
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Zorfdt thank you for the tip.

Turning off the green valves causes all faucets to not give any water on the hot side. It is definitely weird since the top of the water heater should be giving pressure water to the faucets. It makes no sense to me.

Where would one normally have a check valve? So if a check valve does not exist it could explain my issue?

Here are some real pictures of what I can see.






Thank you so much for all your help.
 
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Old 01-22-20, 07:16 AM
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Found the issue. The valve that I was closing was making only the affected bathroom shut off. What I am thinking now is this is NOT a circulation system at all. The affected bathrooms are getting water from the drainage end of the heater, that would explain the warm water, also I noticed when I turn on the pump the water flow reduces.

So whoever did this did not understand circulation pumps, or made a huge mistake. I will fix this by removing the pump and connecting the lower pipe to the output of the heater. Will post once I have this fixed.
 
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Old 01-22-20, 10:06 AM
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I believe there's a valve somewhere (maybe buried) between the bathrooms that work and the one that doesn't. I think your first drawing is correct, but there's another valve that somehow got turned off.

The check valve is that little brass piece between the pump and the drain, it's probably not working since it shouldn't allow any water to flow from the heater back through the circulation pump. But that's probably the only reason you're getting some water.
 
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Old 01-29-20, 07:16 PM
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It worked

I disconnected the pipe from the bottom of the tank and made a T on the top of the tank and connect both pipes to it. Now I have hot water upstairs.

I believe you might be right about a valve in another place, but this house is too big for me to go looking for the valve. But what I think could have happened was there was a pipe somewhere that could have gotten removed from the circuit of this pump and caused this whole mess.

But I am glad to have hot water in the master bathroom upstairs, even if it take a bit to heat up there.
 
 

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