There's a Ladybug in my Shower now

[mielabor]

@ favorit...

Hot water from a condensing combo gas heater would certainly be cheaper, but I don't have central heating! For some years now the owner of the building that I live in has the policy of installing a combo heater with central heating in apartments that become vacant. As it happens a few weeks ago such a system was installed in the apartment just under mine. I have seen it and I must say that I was not happy to see all those steel pipes running everywhere: over the ceilings, along the walls. And the heater itself was installed in the kitchen, taking up valuable space in that already tiny area. My new neighbours said that they intend to use the pipes as rails for mounting spotlights!

 

[rp2813]

The shower at the rear of our house is the one I use. It's quite a distance from the tank style water heater and takes forever to get hot water out of it. It's a stall shower with a low flow head so there is no option to run a full flow tub spout to speed things up. I run the tap at the sink to help get the cold water purged from the pipes faster. Ideally, I'd like to install an on-demand type of heater at that end of the house. With the Affinity pair in that same area, and considering how little water the washer uses (too little in my opinion), if one didn't run the hot water at the laundry sink first, selecting "hot" or "warm" on the washer settings would result in a cold water wash. I don't think the Affinity's on board heater kicks in except on the "Sanitary" cycle but I may be wrong about that. Regardless, an on-demand heater would resolve this issue for both the washer and the shower. Just too expensive to consider currently.

Ralph

 

[yogitunes]

I have the same problem....hot water heater is on opposite side of the house...so that would be about 60 feet of 3/4 pipe to get the hot water to the master bath....now the plumber has given me options, a re-circulation pump and another pipe to keep hot water at the tpas at all time, suposed to operate at very low wattage, second was an on-demand heater, works really good for a shower or kitchen sink and dishwasher, but you can't run all at the same time, shower heads and faucets run a 2.5 gallons per minute this allows time for the water to hat up, but this would not work to fill the jacuzzi at full force, third is to install another hot water heater at the other end of the house to operate the master bath and the kitchen and the first one will take care of the 2 baths and 3 washers...we have a 50 gal gas fired unit now, never ran out of hot water, just hate the thought of wasting water waiting for it to get hot!

RP2813....for the frigidaire washer, we can't tweek the water level the way we want...but a thought, would putting a longer hose for the pressure switch make it add more water cause the pressure in the hose would take a little longer to reach max....say about 5 or 10 feet of coiled hose laying on the bottom of the machine? I was wondering about this....

 

[yogitunes]

I have the same problem....hot water heater is on opposite side of the house...so that would be about 60 feet of 3/4 pipe to get the hot water to the master bath....now the plumber has given me options, a re-circulation pump and another pipe to keep hot water at the tpas at all time, suposed to operate at very low wattage, second was an on-demand heater, works really good for a shower or kitchen sink and dishwasher, but you can't run all at the same time, shower heads and faucets run a 2.5 gallons per minute this allows time for the water to hat up, but this would not work to fill the jacuzzi at full force, third is to install another hot water heater at the other end of the house to operate the master bath and the kitchen and the first one will take care of the 2 baths and 3 washers...we have a 50 gal gas fired unit now, never ran out of hot water, just hate the thought of wasting water waiting for it to get hot!

RP2813....for the frigidaire washer, we can't tweek the water level the way we want...but a thought, would putting a longer hose for the pressure switch make it add more water cause the pressure in the hose would take a little longer to reach max....say about 5 or 10 feet of coiled hose laying on the bottom of the machine? I was wondering about this.... the hose would have to be shortened/lenghtened to adjust level?

 

[sudsmaster]

I timed how long the shower takes to get hot water this morning... it's about 1-1/2 minutes. Too long, IMHO, to stand there waiting with my hand in the shower for the temp to come up. Also, it's a shower stall with a low threshold, so I prefer to run it with the door closed. Otherwise it tends to splash on the floor outside the shower if I have to stand there with the door open and my hand in the stream to detect when the hot water arrives.

Anyway, the Ladybug shower water temperature sensor shut off valve is a keeper in my home.

Your flow may vary.

 

[rp2813]

Yogi I haven't tried anything with my Affinity to get more water in, other than adding it manually through the detergent dispenser from a large spouted mixing bowl. The hose for the spray attachment on the laundry sink next to it is too short to reach, or that would be convenient. Basically, if I can hear water sloshing I figure there's enough in there, even though I see very little suds developing. When I don't hear the sloshing, that's when I add more water myself. I've been told there's an adjustment somewhere that will allow it to fill more, but I don't know where that would be.

Should the time come to re-work the laundry area, I'm going to make it so it will accomodate a Duet pair. Those washers are far superior to the Affinities with options and with their rinsing action. I've owned both types and there is no contest, really. Our current laundry room situation required a pair with a standard footprint so we had to go with Affinities. I'm tolerating it but wish our Duets would have fit in there instead.

Ralph

 

[sudsmaster]

I did some googling of adjusting the water level in a front loader... and came up with some discussions about the Duet/HE# series, but nothing on the Affinity so far. But I figure there must be a pressure dome type of sensor somewhere in the Affinity, and that it must be adjustable, either by a screw like on the Duet or by height of a pressure tube, like in older top loaders.

Probably would have to take apart an Affinity to see if it could be done.