You most likely already realize that your hot water heater is 1 of the largest energy consumers in the typical house. Soon after utilizing that energy to generate the water hot, we only enjoy the water for a few seconds — to wash the dishes or take a shower — then it goes down the drain, carrying all that hard earned energy with it.

Engineers have made huge advances in the past few years to ensnare that heat energy as it travels into our drains, into our pipes and down to the sewer. This drain water heat recovery might be a smart upgrade to your own household plumbing.

Water Heaters

Making the Most of Waste

Drain water heat recovery functions through leveraging heat exchangers. These are currently similar to the one that is taking hot air from inside your fridge. As hot water goes away after usage, the heat exchangers capture the heat energy and use it to either immediately heat more water or keep it to heat water in the future. Several of these systems display their own water storage tanks that assist your hot water heater. These more robust systems help you to trap waste heat from appliances such as your washer and dishwasher, and also tend to preheat clean water to limit your water heater’s energy burden. There are other builds that don’t keep water but give you a way to make use of wastewater heat when you’re using hot water and heating cold water in parallel. Heat exchangers take this energy directly from copper pipes from your shower and put it straight to work.

Large-Scale Savings

If drain water heat recovery systems can get one home more energy efficient, just think of what they can do for a whole community. Towns around the world are already pioneering the way. If you’d like to learn more about drain water heat recovery or other ways you can enhance the efficiency of your household plumbing system, call your local plumbing experts today.