Don’t gimme that look!  I’m not saying that we need to ban the hot shower or even to shower less, though we probably need to.  I’m just saying that nothing wastes heat, like taking a nice, hot shower and the longer your shower the bigger the waste.  The same is true for baths, laundry and even the hot pasta water your draining into the sink.  Nearly all the energy and heat we put into that water is wasted down the drain.  While conserving water and using less hot water is a great idea, it leaves the problem unresolved. The solution involves recovering the heat from the water as it leaves the home for the sewer lines.

The solution is a heat exchanger that will pull some of the heat from the drain lines, before the warm water leaves the home.  Great idea?  Well it’s not just an idea, it is now available and it’s called GFX Drain Water Heat Exchanger.  This heat exchanger claims to recapture upto 80% of the heat coming thru the drain.  There are different sized exchangers and installation methods that effect the efficiency, but it’s hard to argue with efficiency of over 50%.  The real question is whether it’s cost effective.  The company that is selling them claims they have 30-50 year lifetime, but warrant them for 10 years.  The company Inventroment Energy Solutions has a website at www.gfxstar.ca with lots of information on their product.  It’s certainly worth a visit, just think of all the energy that has been wasted down the drain since indoor plumbing and instant hot water became widespread.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.