His first problem was that his house is plumbed using a manifold type plumbing layout with a ¾ inch supply line to the manifold, and he complained that it takes “forever” to get hot water to the fixtures supplied by the manifold.
His second problem was regarding the radiant heating system he is using. The pumps that pump the hot water through the radiant heating systems have two speeds, high and low. In order to start the tankless heater the pumps have to be set to high. When they are set on low they don’t have enough power to turn on the heater, but when set to low they will keep the heater on if it is already on.
The customer wanted to know if there was a way to have the Chilipepper activate when the radiant heater controller turned on the pumps. That way he could set the pumps to the low setting and since the Chilipepper will have turned on his tankless water heater, the pumps would still work even when set on the low setting.
There is a way, as long as you are handy with electrical circuits. The Chilipepper requires a momentary contact to activate it on the two control wires coming out of the Chilipepper. If the contact is held closed for more than 15 seconds the Chilipepper will come on for a half second every 15 seconds to signal you that there is a short circuit on the control wires.
To have the Chilipepper come on when the 110 volt radiant heating pump comes on all you need to do is connect a relay in parallel with the radiant heating pump, and wire a capacitor in series with the normally open relay contacts. Then wire a resistor in parallel with the capacitor.
When the relay contacts close the capacitor appears as a short circuit to the Chilipepper, and then as the capacitor charges up the current stops flowing and the Chilipepper is activated. A high value resistor wired in parallel with the capacitor discharges the capacitor so that it is ready for the next time. A one microfarad capacitor will work fine, and a resistor around 50k ohms or more.
So if anyone wishes to control his or her Chilipepper with a 110 volt signal, or any voltage really, all one needs to do is hook up a relay, capacitor, and resistor in the same way as described above. It’s a piece of cake.
I got an email this morning from a customer who has done the same thing with his dishwasher. He rigged up the relay to the pump so that when the drain pump runs it starts the Chilipepper. The dishwasher always starts the drain pump prior to each fill cycle. He loves it. I suspect that most people would probably not want to mess around with the wiring to their dishwasher though. This would be a great project for do-it-yourself enthusiasts.
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