Reuse the Energy used to heat your water with a Drain Water Heat Recovery System

If you want to make the most of your hot water usage, why not consider a system that recovers the heat from drain water and uses it to heat your home? This allows you to reuse water that has already been heated and reduce not only your heating bill but also the impact that heating your home will have on the environment around you. This is because you will be causing less greenhouse gas to be emitted as you are using the heat your home has already produced in a much more efficient way.

What is a drain water heat recovery system, and how does it work?
About twenty percent of the energy used by our home goes to heating water. We tend to use approximately fifty to seventy percent of this hot water when we bathe. While this does not seem like a lot, when you consider that that water simply goes down the drain and is lost, you can see how harnessing that energy would lead to a massive savings and a reduction in our environmental impact at the same time.

A drain water heat recovery system uses a system of coils that have been installed so that they wrap around your home’s drain stack. These coils transfer the heat from the drain to a heat recovery unit. This warms cold water as it enters your home before it reaches the hot water heater. This means that it takes less energy for you to heat the water in your hot water tank. Users of these systems have enjoyed up to a forty percent reduction on their water heating costs.

Advantages you can enjoy with a drain water heat recovery system
A drain water heat recovery system is a passive system. This means that there are no active parts that can break down. The heat transfer is automatic as heat will naturally move from an area of high heat to one of lower heat. There is also no risk that the drain water will mix with the fresh supply of incoming water. Because of the form that these systems take, as long as there is a centralized drain stack, it is possible to use this system.

These systems are extremely environmentally friendly and, depending on a home’s energy use, can reduce consumption by as much as ten percent. As a result, the amount of greenhouse gas that is used to heat water is also reduced. As a result, these systems will typically pay for themselves within five years.