hot water for pool cabana?

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mrshanes

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Jun 3, 2011
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Location
Morgantown, WV
We built a new house last year and had the builder run water to the area and install drains prior to pouring the concrete pad for the cabana. This spring we built the cabana and I'm getting around to the plumbing part and have some questions/requests for ideas.

Please see the attached drawing for the floor plan.

The water coming in to the cabana is cold (marked by the blue dot on the drawing), but we would like to have hot water in the kitchen and bathroom along with an outdoor shower behind the bathroom sink. The outdoor shower is not really for taking showers to clean, but more or less just to rinse off before getting into the pool, so we really would just like for that water to be warm.

My questions are around how to get the hot water? I think my options include:
-a small tank in the pool equipment room that would feed the bathroom and kitchen areas
-a tankless unit in the pool equipment room that would feed the bathroom and kitchen areas
-small tankless (or mini-tank) point-of-use units under the bathroom and kitchen sinks

This will basically be used for hand washing, rinsing in the shower, and clean-up in the kitchen. I don't want to overdue it, but I don't want someone to have to wait a couple minutes for hot water to wash their hands or take a rinse in the shower.

Sorry this first post is so long, but I wanted it to be detailed so I could get the best recommendations. Thanks for taking the time to read.

Shane

cabana.jpg
 
If you already have natural gas to the structure, then you'd be better off with a tankless unit. Every other option means you'll either have to leave it on all the time or you'll have to wait 30 minutes for hot water. Tankless costs the most to install but uses the least energy. The outdoor shower can be controlled by a shower valve, like a normal shower.
 
or you could just install a 40 gallon water heater in the storage room, looks like there is plenty of room and will be alot less demanding on the gas supply,and way cheaper. do you have a pool heater? if so the gas line may not be able to support both a ttankless wh and a pool heater. only way to know for sure is to do a gas load calculation.
 
There is already gas there for the pool heater. I was trying to stay away from a gas tankless unit because of the up-front purchase cost and installation cost. I could do the electric ones myself. Why would I have to wait 30 minutes for hot water with an electric point-of-use unit?
 
There is already gas there for the pool heater. I was trying to stay away from a gas tankless unit because of the up-front purchase cost and installation cost. I could do the electric ones myself. Why would I have to wait 30 minutes for hot water with an electric point-of-use unit?

You wouldn't have to wait if you left the tank on all the time. But that's a huge waste of energy if the cabana only gets used every once in a while. The wait time for a point of use is still 20 to 30 minutes from the time you plug it in. Even for a 6 gallon.
 
Don’t install a gas water heater in the storage room. That’s most likely going to be a corrosive atmosphere with pool chemicals in there. (Chlorine)
 
Too bad the plumber didn’t run you a hot water pipe out to the cabana with a circ pump with a wall switch or a motion detector.

That would eliminate another water heater and or standby loss.
 

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