Make a heat exchanger. save on heating cost for hot water/ boiler

[hirev]

Hi all.

Was looking around and as many of you know drain heat recovery units are extremely expensive. looking at home depot they are like 600+ for most of them.

well this link shows how to make one. simple and easy. and for like 40-50 bucks.

also the 600+ units you can make for about the same price if you can get a hold of square copper pipe and fittings.

enjoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEEx...ature=youtu.be

[dirtdog]

There is a Canadian company that makes these. The web site is www.watercycles.ca. They are located in Saskatchewan and you may be able to buy directly from them. (I have no affiliation with this company but am aware of them from a previous life.). You are right - we use a lot of energy to heat water; I have heard numbers as high as 14 - 15% of our total home energy bill is used to heat water, and in a matter of moments most of it goes down the drain. So these things are good ideas. Do I have one - I don't. But it's because the way my drains are set up I can't pipe the cold water coming into the house while at the same time capturing the heat from the drain water. It is a matter of geography that just won't work in my case. Otherwise I probably would have invested in one. If you have an 'instantaneous' hot water system, these also are difficult to impossible to make work.

They shouldn't be as expensive as they are sold at retail. The mark ups in heating and hot water equipment are obscene and you can figure that between the manufacturer and the retailer or contractor the price jumps by a factor of 3 to 4 (really!)

So there are a lot of impediments to doing this. If it was in the building code and all new homes had to have one, so that the plumbing system could be designed to work and the builder could buy direct, the price would be a lot better and we all would benefit through improved energy efficiency.