4 ms·
Capturing heat before we flush it down the train is probably preferable to extracting it after, given that delta T will be higher. There are shower drain heat e
by elric 3y ago
Capturing heat before we flush it down the train is probably preferable to extracting it after, given that delta T will be higher. There are shower drain heat exchangers which can recover some of the heat in the water going down the drain.
- bee_rider 3y agoI wonder what the breakdown is by usage. I imagine the combination of: dish washer, sink, and clothes washer, might make it appealing to collect it all at once.
- IggleSniggle 3y agoClothes detergents have been able to effectively clean in cold water for decades. The only reason people still wash using these detergents in hot water is ignorance. It's such a huge waste. Please stopping washing clothes with brand name detergents using hot or warm water. It costs more money, does more environmental damage, and doesn't even make your clothes marginally cleaner.
- elric 3y agoIgnorance? I doubt it. There's a variety of reasons to wash at least some items in very hot water. Killing dust mites for people with allergies sounds like a good reason. Getting rid of faecal contaminants sounds like another good reason. It does way more than making clothes "marginally cleaner".
- IggleSniggle 3y agoModern detergents are capable of doing these jobs in cold water.
- bee_rider 3y agoNot commenting to argue either way, as I have no idea what the truth is. But, I’m surprised that there can be such strong, confident, and basically contradictory opinions on this topic which seems to me like it ought to be a simple matter of fact.
- cooper_ganglia 3y agoAs someone who has done laundry before, I feel confident in chiming in here: Anecdotally, hot water is almost always better for reducing smells in my clothing. It helps some fabric types more than others, but it doesn’t hurt any of them. If you can afford a home, electricity, water, detergent, and clothing, I personally cannot imagine a single reason not to use hot water.
- bee_rider 3y agoI’ve also done plenty of laundry, of course, but I never bothered varying the water temperature as an independent variable.
- cooper_ganglia 3y agoI had a girlfriend years ago who insisted that cold water worked just as fine as hot water. While I didn't write down any observations, I did do several loads of laundry over the next couple weeks where I adjusted water temp as a variable, and found that things typically smelled more fresh when they were washed in hotter water. Maybe it's placebo, maybe it's my detergent, maybe it's something else, but for me, personally, I always wash non-delicate laundry with hot water because at the very least, I feel like I smell better, and that's worth it to me! :)
- IggleSniggle 3y agoThe specific detergent does matter quite a bit here, as well.
- alchemist1e9 3y ago
- jupp0r 3y agoMy clothes will not get cleaned and still smell bad if I wash them in cold water with major brand detergents.
- dzhiurgis 3y agoMy dishwasher uses 1kwh of power per load, thats hardly worth capturing Shower tho… esp if you purchase ready made shower capsule that does not require external hot water supply and produces it’s own from recycled water? That might be the one.
- jahewson 3y agoNot much time to capture heat in a flowing drain, many small heat exchangers will be less efficient and more expensive than one large one, very hard to fit in a small space without utilising a compressor, plus additional plumbing - the captured heat pipe would have run all the way back to the water heater, losing heat all the way.
- hinkley 3y agoSince we premix the hot and the cold water and then spray it over a human body, 30% recovery rate sounds impressive honestly. I doubt you can go much higher than that even with the counter flow design they undoubtedly already have.