Hello. I just bought a new home that has a recirculation pump located near the hot water heater. I am new to all this so I have some questions:
(a) I have looked online and see some of these pumps have timers attached so they operate only during expected usage times (not between midnight and 5am). Mine does not have one that I can see. Are these always attached directly to the pump body or can the timer be located elsewhere? If elsewhere, where might this be?
(b) I have read that some of these systems incorporate a temperature switch somewhere that shuts off the pump when a pre-set temp is reached at some point in the line. What are the signs that mine has such a switch?
(c) Even with a timer as in (a) above it seems potentially very wasteful and hard on the pump for it to run continuously as we are not big hot water users generally. So is there some simple way - ideally using X-10, Active Home, CMA-11 (I think that's it), and simple macros (no running computer needed) which I already use - to control this pump mechanism at a more granular level?
Thanks,
David