Using the Chilipepper Pump with a Dedicated Return Line

If your home is already equipped with a hot water circulating system and your system uses a standard circulating pump with a dedicated return line then you can easily replace the circulating pump with a Chilipepper Hot Water Demand Pump.


Pump Installation

Step one is to remove the old pump and install the Chilipepper in its place. The Chilipepper pump must be installed using either hoses or flexible tubing. The Chilipepper was not designed to be mounted with rigid plumbing connections.

Hot water circulating systems have a check valve between the pump and the water heater to prevent the hot water from flowing through the dedicated return line backwards. The Chilipepper has a built in check valve for the same reason. You don’t need both check valves so you can remove one or the other if you wish which may result in a little faster hot water delivery.

Control system set up
With the Chilipepper located at the water heater you will need a start button at each fixture where you want to be able to control the pump. You must wire the buttons in parallel. You can wire up any number of buttons.

Any old insulated hookup wire will work. The control wires only carry 5 volts with a maximum current of less than 1 milliamp.

The buttons need to be momentary contact type buttons like doorbell buttons. Any non-illuminated doorbell button will work. Illuminated buttons appear to the Chilipepper as a short circuit and will cause the pump to cycle on for a short burst every 15 seconds, letting you know there is a problem.

However, hard wiring the buttons is probably a very large undertaking. It is far easier to use X10 remote controls.

Using X10 Modules to Control the Chilipepper

To activate the Chilipepper the control wires need to be shorted and then have the short removed. In other words, the pump won’t start until you RELEASE the button.

The X10 UM506 universal remote receiver has a momentary contact relay which works great with the Chilipepper. You simply wire the two control wires from the Chilipepper to the two terminals on the UM506. Plug the UM506 into a wall outlet. Then plug in a remote switch at each location where you want to control the pump.

For more details about using X10 modules to control you Chilipepper including the use of motion detectors visit this page: Remote Control

More details about using the Chilipepper with a dedicated hot water return line.