I had a water softner installed as well as my hot water recirculating pump reinstalled. After everything was done, I now have warm to hot water in my cold lines. I can purge the warm water by running the cold water for a few minutes. I've left my water softner in bypass mode because the copper line is very hot at times to it and I'm concerned that it would damage the water softner.

Here is how my plumbing is set up:

cold out of wall goes to expansion tank
from expansion tank to water softner
from water softner to water heater
recirculating pump is connected to a pipe coming out of the wall and connected to the drain valve of the water heater

I don't see any check valves so would installing a check valve between the cold inlet to the water heater and the water softner help with the heat getting to my water softner?

Other problems with this is that if the recirculating pump isn't running then my hot water doesn't get that hot. If I keep the recirculating pump off and shut the ball valves off on each side of the recirculating pump then everything is fine except I have to run the hot water a long time to get hot water to my farthest bathroom. completely stumped and I cannot get a plumber to come out and look at it without paying a service fee.



Edited 1 times.

It will definitely help if the expansion tank was downstream of the water softener.

So the expansion tank should be between the water heater and the water softner? The plumber who installed it said that it doesn't matter where the expansion tank is as my house is a closed system. Did I get screwed?

The expansion tank works anywhere in the system but, with the softener between the expansion tank and the water heater, hot water from the water heater backing up into the expansion tank when the heater fires and water expands goes into the softener first.