Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought the Watts Premier hot water recirculating system and let me tell you it works great! I did not notice my gas (heating) bill going up significantly at all. It was well worth the investment as far as I am concerned for convenience and saving water. The only negative thing I can say about it is that the remote stop valve did fail. There was not a whole lot of information about this problem with this system to be found, even on the internet, so I didn't know what was going wrong at first. But slowly it seemed like there was a lot of hot water on the cold side when we turned the cold water on. It was more and more as time went on. And the valve became noisy and sounded like water was going through it all the time. I finally called Watts customer service. After being on hold for a half and hour, I talked to a rep who confirmed to me that the stop valve was failing. They were willing to send me a replacement, but I had to either send the old one back first or pay for one and get a credit after I sent the old one back. They said they are very strict about this because there is only a one year warranty on the valve and people were always calling in trying to get a free replacement after the valve failed or get extra valves when needed. Because he didn't sound very concerned, I then asked if this was a common problem and he admitted then that YES the valves do inevitably fail. It could be 6 months or a year or two years, three years.... who knows? But they do fail and it's just a matter of time. They really aren't made to last very long. But they are made to last at least a year- long enough to expire the warranty period. They don't tell you that when you buy it, of course and it doesn't say it in the manual. They mention doing a stop valve test, but they pretty much play it down. Make it sound like "in the rare case" if it fails.... But the truth is that it DEFINITELY will fail, so you really should have an extra one on hand because this whole system relies on this little valve made of plastic. It is unserviceable and who knows what's inside. But it is made of plastic and looks cheap, but actually they want 34.00 a pop for it if you buy it alone or $60.00 in the kit form with the replacement hoses. It really shouldn't be more than 5 bucks. For $34., in my opinion, they should be able to make it with better quality to last much longer like most other plumbing materials- how about some copper and brass? And they do put serial numbers on these cheap little plastic valves just so they can make sure you are not within your short warranty period so they can charge you. So this is the downside -that this stop valve is a little money maker for them that turns you into a repeat customer- kind of like their water filtration systems. Got to keep buying those replacement filters and you know they strategically engineer them to only last so long and unserviceable. Other than that, it's a good system and does work very well when this valve works. But when it fails (not if, but when), not only are you wasting water again as you wait for the hot water to clear out of the cold side, but you are also wasting much heat energy to boot. So you just have to shut it off and it is no good until you get it fixed. So if you buy one of these, go in with your eyes open and keep an extra valve on hand. More so, some applications require multiple stop valves depending the way your house is plumbed, which will complicate matters even more. If you require multiple stop valves at different locations, then any one of them can go out at any time and so you should keep multiple extra valves on hand just in case to keep the system working properly. They tend to go out gradually over time like mine did. That may become quite costly and cumbersome. In that regard, I think Watts has a responsibility to their customers to step up the quality of these stop valves. The quality of these valves should at least equal the quality of the pumps that work with them. The other way to avoid having to use the stop valve is to plumb in a return line back to the water heater from the furthest point. Long term, it may be worth this investment. Either way, I think the hot water system is wonderful to have and I am hooked on it. If not for the valve problem, I would have given it 5 stars. Hope this helps!!