Install A Drain Water Heat Recovery Unit In Your Custom Home

Planning to build a new home in the Collingwood area? Then you will need to budget for a drain water heat recovery unit.

What is a drain water heat recovery unit?

It is basically a copper pipe that is installed in the main plumbing drain/stack that comes from your showers. The copper pipe is installed vertically and has copper tubing wrapped around it. The reason for the tubing wrapping around it is so you can connect the incoming water lines from the city water.

You then run the water lines from the other end of the tubing to your hotwater tank.

The way it works is as follows;

When you turn on your shower the hot water runs down the drain and down the plumbing stack that is now copper. The copper absorbs the heat from the hot waste water that is flowing through it and heats up. The copper tubing that is wrapped around the copper drain also heats up.

Since you have turned on the hot water for a shower that hot water starts to be removed from the hot water tank to flow to the shower, the hot water tank then starts to allow new water to be added so that it can warm it up to keep the tank full. That water flows from the municipal lines outside and is usually cold. But as the new cold water runs into the building it now runs around the heated copper pipe warming that water up.

When the new water now arrives to the hot water tank it isn't cold anymore, its actually quiet warm. The water has now been pre-heated before it entered the hot water tank.

What is the benefit of this?

Pre-heating the water that goes into the hot water tank allows the hot water tank to use less energy to keep your water to the desired temperature, this means that you save money on gas/electricity for not having to heat as much water.

It also means that you shorten the time that it takes to make hot water. So if you have a lot of people needing to tank showers then you shouldn't have to worry as much about running out of water because the water that enters the hot water tank is already warmed to a certain point.

Eventually this drain system pays for itself with the money it saves you on your energy bills.

When you are planning your new custom home ask your contractor about a drain water heat recovery unit.

Rob
Village Builders Inc.