Updated sinks and hot water circulation

[SUBVET30]

So, my wife really liked the idea of vessel sinks in the bath. The original sinks are a little small.

Took the easy way and installed the new sinks right over the old sinks and ran the plumbing straight down through. Just pulled the original drain and everything lined up.

It was nice to hear the new Coaches added a hot water circulation valve to the shower, but to retrofit that valve was going to be way more than I wanted to do.

So, I tapped into the hot and cold supply lines to the aft sink and installed a small hot water pump taking a suction from the hot supply and returning to the cold supply.
We run the pump for less than a minute to get instant hot water out of the shower saving tons of water when dry camping.
Downside: if you want to use the sink before you shower, the water is very hot.
Forget to get a picture of the pump, but there are just PEX "T" fittings installed with the pump in the middle.

[brobox]

Nice Job!

[voltdoc]

Nice work! Interesting regarding the HW recirc. I had always thought of doing that (had one in the sticks and bricks) but assumed there would be a check valve, pump, or some other impediment that would keep it from working. Glad to hear it worked!

I went the shower miser route and it wasn't as difficult as expected running the pex pipe for the return line. It does save a lot of water. One other advantage of the shower miser is you can fill the fresh water tank from inside the coach.

[Gary.Jones]

Rob

Do you have an explanation of how you made your modification and some pix of the final product?

Gary

[voltdoc]

Originally Posted by Gary.Jones

Rob

Do you have an explanation of how you made your modification and some pix of the final product?

Gary

Gary, yes I am working on a blog post of all the installation details. It isn't necessarily complex but there is a lot of info to convey. Installation specifics will vary by floorplan, but on my 44B the routing of the PEX return piping was easier than I had expected - the bed is on the same side of the coach as the shower and has a plumbing/wiring chase underneath that is fairly easily accessed by removing the nightstands (4 screws) on either side of the bed. Then follow the rest of the plumbing thru the floor (behind the forward most nightstand) and it exits almost exactly where needed in the wet bay.

Once the return line is done, the rest is just ordinary plumbing stuff. The new valve is simply tapped into the mixed water that goes to the showerhead, no modification of the hot or cold lines is required.

After a couple of tries, I also found the ideal place to tap the return line into, which is at the Shore Water/Fill Tank valve in the wet bay - it is already piped direct to the top of the fresh tank. First I tried tapping into the tank outlet (as suggested by ShowerMiser), which feeds the fresh water pump, but this is a bad idea as it introduces air into the pump intake causing cavitation and sometimes loss of prime.

I used, and prefer the looks of, the OEM version of the Showermiser valve and indicator as shown in the photo. This was also much easier to install than the stock valve, although it is a more expensive option. In the photo, as shown with the valve handle pointing down, water is routed back to the fresh tank, rotate 180 degrees with the handle pointing straight up and water is routed to the showerhead. Rotate 45 degrees so the handle is pointing left and the water is shut off. I don't think there is anything magical about the valve, so it potentially could be sourced elsewhere. The temp indicator "mushroom" (blue disk in photo) provides nice feedback so you know when the water gets hot, but isn't absolutely necessary.

This is one of the most useful mods we have done.

Not sure when my post will be finished as it isn't high on the priority list right now. I'll try and put together a photo album for now and link it here. Let me know if you have any specific questions.

[SUBVET30]

Originally Posted by voltdoc

Gary, yes I am working on a blog post of all the installation details. It isn't necessarily complex but there is a lot of info to convey. Installation specifics will vary by floorplan, but on my 44B the routing of the PEX return piping was easier than I had expected - the bed is on the same side of the coach as the shower and has a plumbing/wiring chase underneath that is fairly easily accessed by removing the nightstands (4 screws) on either side of the bed. Then follow the rest of the plumbing thru the floor (behind the forward most nightstand) and it exits almost exactly where needed in the wet bay.



Once the return line is done, the rest is just ordinary plumbing stuff. The new valve is simply tapped into the mixed water that goes to the showerhead, no modification of the hot or cold lines is required.



After a couple of tries, I also found the ideal place to tap the return line into, which is at the Shore Water/Fill Tank valve in the wet bay - it is already piped direct to the top of the fresh tank. First I tried tapping into the tank outlet (as suggested by ShowerMiser), which feeds the fresh water pump, but this is a bad idea as it introduces air into the pump intake causing cavitation and sometimes loss of prime.



I used, and prefer the looks of, the OEM version of the Showermiser valve and indicator as shown in the photo. This was also much easier to install than the stock valve, although it is a more expensive option. In the photo, as shown with the valve handle pointing down, water is routed back to the fresh tank, rotate 180 degrees with the handle pointing straight up and water is routed to the showerhead. Rotate 45 degrees so the handle is pointing left and the water is shut off. I don't think there is anything magical about the valve, so it potentially could be sourced elsewhere. The temp indicator "mushroom" (blue disk in photo) provides nice feedback so you know when the water gets hot, but isn't absolutely necessary.



This is one of the most useful mods we have done.



Not sure when my post will be finished as it isn't high on the priority list right now. I'll try and put together a photo album for now and link it here. Let me know if you have any specific questions.

Thanks for inspiration! Going to look at doing that this summer.

[ArtJoyce]

what hot water pump did you use?

[RVFunlovers]

SubVet - Thanks for your service to our country.
Great job on the sinks. They look nice. They add some height.

When we got the 22 coach I did not think we would use the hot water recirculation much. We don’t dry camp a ton but the feature has come in handy.

We have ended up using recirculation all the time.

It fills our fresh water tank a little at a time and saves a little water each day. Even when on full hookups why not. I find myself filling my fresh tank before dry camping with the recirculation feature. Because I can do it from inside the coach.

A more useful feature when dry camping but it has became my norm.

[SUBVET30]

Originally Posted by RVFunlovers

SubVet - Thanks for your service to our country.
Great job on the sinks. They look nice. They add some height.

When we got the 22 coach I did not think we would use the hot water recirculation much. We don’t dry camp a ton but the feature has come in handy.

We have ended up using recirculation all the time.

It fills our fresh water tank a little at a time and saves a little water each day. Even when on full hookups why not. I find myself filling my fresh tank before dry camping with the recirculation feature. Because I can do it from inside the coach.

A more useful feature when dry camping but it has became my norm.

Thanks!

I am sitting here laughing a little because I did not even think about the tank filling up when you are hooked to city water and run the recirc pump.

I now imagine overfilling my tank and pumping out of the overflow. Still laughing a little. Good news is we all usually have l little headspace in the water tank when we hook up.

Thanks for pointing this out.

[SUBVET30]

Here were the shots from unda (there's a joke somewhere in that statement) the sink.

[RVFunlovers]

The recirculation is not that loud if on city water. Once I forgot I left it on until I walked outside and my concrete pad was wet. Oops, I forgot the recirculation water was running and water will fill the fresh tank then go right out the overflow just like it does if you leave the city-fill valve open in the wet bay.