Keeping the water inside your Barrie home or condo well heated is important to your family’s comfort. With that in mind, let’s discuss drain water heat recovery.
Water is an expensive natural element to heat and carries a significant amount of energy. Any hot water that goes down the drain carries away energy with it. That’s typically 80–90% of the energy used to heat water in a home. Drain water heat recovery systems capture this energy to preheat cold water entering the water heater.
Drain water heat recovery is the practice of recovering the thermal energy we throw away down our drain, particularly during a shower. A hot water heat recovery drain is a water-to-water heat exchanger designed for use with drain water.
How does Drain Water Heat Recovery Work?
Drain water heat recovery technology works well with all types of water heaters. Drain water heat exchangers recover heat from the hot water used in showers, bathtubs, sinks, dishwashers and clothes washers.
Water enters the home between 5 and 12-degrees C and is heated to 50-degrees C inside the hot water tank. Showerhead temperature is approximately 41-degrees C and this water is flushed down the drain at 37-degrees C. This energy can be used to substantially reduce hot water heating costs. A hot water heat recovery drain is a drain waste heat exchanger which will heat water coming into your home by 12-degrees C using the energy from water being flushed down the drain.
Hot water recovery drain systems have a copper heat exchanger that replaces a vertical section of a main waste drain. The cold water coming into your house runs through a series of copper coils that are tightly wrapped around a copper drain stack. As hot drain water passes through the drain, cold fresh water passes up through the copper coils and heat is transferred, pre-heating the cold water before it gets to the water heater.
Drain water never mixes with the fresh water – it’s simply that heat from the drain water is used to pre-heat the incoming water so the water heater has less work to do. Warmer water going into the water tank requires less energy to heat, so energy costs go down.
What are the Benefits of having a Hot Water Recovery Drain in your Home?
A hot water recovery drain:
- Saves money on hot water heating
- Extends the life of your hot water heater
- Reduces greenhouse gas emissions with lower energy consumption
- No more running out of hot water while you shower
- Consumes no energy
- Is 100% recyclable
Remember to check back weekly for more tips and tricks on maintaining homes in Barrie.