It takes a few minutes for my tankless water heater to warm up, so we end up wasting a lot of water in our shower. Is there a way to avoid this? A friend mentioned a “comfort valve” or something? What is it and how does it work? Or is there another solution? Thx!
Unfortunately, the shower has no exposed plumbing and the gas line is back near the ground floor heater.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a shower in the US (assuming you’re in the US) without access to the plumbing somewhere, I’m sure they probably exist somewhere, but it’s not common in my experience, usually there’s a little access panel on the other side of the wall somewhere, maybe hidden in a closet or behind a piece of furniture or something. If there’s not, I’d consider adding one anyway, at some point if you’re there long enough you’re probably going to want access to it for some issue or project that comes up down the line.
They make small tankless electric water heaters that run off of regular 110V outlets for heating a single sink or shower, if there’s convenient electrical nearby you may be able to just hook one of those up.
This is not my experience at all. I haven’t had a single house where the plumbing was accessible
Living in the US I’ve never seen what you’re describing
What part? Most houses I’ve seen in the Northeast either have some kind of access panel, or the shower is backed by a closet in another room where you could cut in if you needed to.
Never seen that. Always gotta break open dry wall for that kinda work.
Cheapskate subdivision builders commonly build on concrete slabs anymore with no way to access plumbing.
Yeah it never goes through the attic.
You’ll have to relocate the heater closer to the shower. You can have someone run the gas line to the new location. That’s about all you can do.
You could insulate the hot water pipe, but that will only help when the water in the pipe is already hot, like if someone showered earlier. It only extends the time the water already in the pipe remains hot.
They could install a small - around 2 gallon - electric water heater near the shower. I have a similar problem in my kitchen and it was solved quite cheaply by putting one of those under the sink.