From Guest Blogger and All-Around Cool Guy Brian McGowan: Greenfest Philadelphia
I will be showing the drain water heat exchanger at a booth at Greenfest Philadelphia on 9/11, from 10 AM to 4 PM. I would like to invite anyone who may be in the area to come out and enjoy the day and possibly stop by and visit. There will be food, music and education. Linked above is further information. Thank you.
– Brian
I wish that I’d known about that before my house was built. At this point, I think it would be too difficult to instal it.
@ Brian
Hi htree good wishes for a good show for your technology.
A friend brought a Canadian co to a local Engineering seminar and they showed a real neat Heat Exchanger that integrates with the Sewer and provides condenser services to chilled water HVAC systems . Saves water used by cooling towers and improves heat transfer making the cooling system more energy efficient. Works with Geo thermal heat pumps too a real game changer in proper applications.
Go for it
A word of caution about cooling towers.
Cooling towers can significantly improve efficiency when used to replace air cooling and reduce water usage when used to replace water cooling. However, unless they are properly managed, they can cause serious health problems.
Cooling towers can become breeding places for dangerous bacteria. Specifically, they can become colonized by the bacteria that causes Legionnaires disease which has been fatal to many people. The mist from cooling towers can carry bacteria to nearby people thereby infecting them.
I don’t know how to manage cooling towers properly to prevent heath hazards, but ways to do so are well known and if properly followed will eliminate health risks.
Frank,
I believe we have spoken about this before but I can’t remember the details. I retrofitted this into my 60+ year old house. I would be willing to look at pictures of your situation if you wanted to email them to me.
Brian
Brian,
Almost certainly your 60+ year old house has a cellar with would expedite making such plumbing changes. My house was completed in 2006, is two stories, and is built on a slab. I actually considered having crawl space under it but found that, because it has been some time since houses here have been built with crawl space, local contractors had no experience with it. So, putting in a drain heat exchanger would probably be too difficult and expensive to consider at this point.
I do think that drain heat exchangers are a good idea for new construction or in older houses with cellars or crawl space. If marketing them is successful, your drain heat exchangers could become widely used or even required by building codes.
Yes I do have a basement which made it very simple. For on slab solutions there is a pump box arrangement that can be implemented. I imagine that your sewer pipe is under the slab throughout the house?
There are now codes that do require it being adopted in several states with more to come hopefully.
It would be slightly more completed than that. A significant amount of tearing things up would have to be done. The installation cost alone would probably run into hundreds of dollars if the job were done neatly. It’s questionable whether the savings would exceed the interest on the investment.
It’s good to see that codes are now requiring it. Surely the cost would not be very great if it were included in the building plans from the beginning and the cost could be justified by the energy savings.
In some situations, perhaps heat exchangers could be installed on individual showers. The drainage from the shower could be used to heat the cold water for the shower thereby reducing the amount of hot water used.