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[chiselchain]

i have a 38inch side arm exchanger. but it seems like im running out of hot water pretty quickly. the water heater is 2 years old and when I hooked up the side arm up a bit of lyme came out of the drain. now I turned the water heat on and it seems to have plenty of hot water. think my water heaters plugging up?

[hondaracer2oo4]

Is this a new symptom for you? I too have had hard water issues in the past. Once in a while I use  to open up the bottom drain which was T'd off of the bottom feed for the sidearm and drain out a bunch of lyme which would plug up the bottom feed. I have installed a water softener now which has taken care of the issue. I also pump my side arm now as well.

[chiselchain]

this is my first year with my boiler. what do you mean by pump your side arm?

[hondaracer2oo4]

I have a pump on the bottom intake that is thermostatically controlled. when the water in the take drops below 145* it turns on and pumps water through the sidearm for a quicker recovery. It works OK. I was hoping for faster recovery times. The problem with my sidearm when it was only thermosiphon   was the top of the water tank would be 180 while the bottom was at 60. I would get probably 20 gallons of 110* water out of it and then it would drop. My side arm is only 12 inches with many small tubes inside for the heat exchange. I would like to try one of the long sidearms that is just a tube inside a tube. Don't know if it would work better. It takes me a few hours still to bring the hole tank back to 145* even with the pump. I have the pump throttled way back with a ball valve. Doesn't move very much water very quick but is constantly moving it until it reaches 145*.

[chiselchain]

I don't suppose it would hurt to turn my water heater back on with my boiler still running to it would it?

[cantoo]

I have a stainless sidearm 3/4" line inside a 2" pipe (I think) supply is a 1" line coming straight from my owb approx 40' away. Hot from owb goes in the top of the sidearm, heater is set up to thermosiphon and we have a mixer valve installed. I connected the sidearm into the top side of the heater using a T for the pressure relief valve. Owb is set to 155*.  It works really well and we haven't had any issues with running out of water. If you are running out of water maybe something isn't setup right. Did it ever work right?
 I assume he means that he has his sidearm connected to the pump instead of thermosiphon to move the hot water.
 You can turn your breaker back on, it won't hurt anything. Some peope still leave their electrical hooked up they just drop it a few degrees so that the owb does most of the heating, the electricity is just a backup or for quicker recovery when using a lot of hot water. I have a 20 plate exchanger on my other house and it works good too, the more water you use the hotter it gets. ( mixer valve keeps water temperature from scalding though.

[bikeralan]

I had a sidearm on my stove at our previous house and it never did work quite right, fiddled with it constantly.
I now have a 20 plate exchanger and love it, no problems.

[chiselchain]

it sounds like the same side arm I have but I have my supply line from my boiler going into the bottom port of the side arm. would this make a difference? your set up sound the same as mine(T with pop off and mixing valve). its 60gallon water heater and by the time we give the kids theyre bath and my wife takes her shower its luke warm water left over for me! lol.

[cantoo]

I really don't think it makes much difference but would be easy to change out just to see if it helps. Mine is only 40 gal and usually just 2 of us but hot water hasn't been an issue even when we had lots of people over. I have a pretty short run though and very little heat draw so maybe my water is just hotter in the tank. Do you have insulation on your hot water lines? I can hardly hold my hand on the pipes.


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[chiselchain]

looks pretty much the same way I set mine up. my underground pipes are three wrap but in the house is just pex. when I touch the side arm ou cant hold your hand there very long either. maybe im just using to much water.

[cantoo]

Really though it should be the same as electrically heated water. Only difference is you are heating it with water instead of electricity so the volume of water should be the same. Maybe you need another storage tank so that your incoming cold water is at room temperature instead of really cold. This would help your recovery times as you wouldn't be raising the temperature nearly as much. Just plumb in an old water heater tank or a pressure tank to your cold water supply and the water will be at room temperature to feed your hot water tank. Can't hurt.

[mikemike]

In pic #4 is that galvanized pipe you are using?

[cantoo]

There is a 3" galv nipple on the hot water tank, the other one is after the relief valve so no problem. I have a brass one to replace the one on the water heater just haven't changed it out yet.

[chiselchain]

whats wrong with using galvanized?

[cantoo]

Chisel, I think it has something to do with corrosion in domestic water. Also some people say that using different metals can cause issues too, copper, brass and galv or even black pipe on the same system. You know the old ebony and ivory story. My old water system was all galv pipe so not sure it matters much anyway. My owb is stainless so not sure if it's a problem anyway. TSC had their brass on sale for half price which was close to galv regular price so I bought all brass fittings.