We all know hot water costs money. We’re accustomed to paying for comfort and there is nothing wrong about it but if you’re like me – you’ll have your comfort but find some sneaky way to save on it (if you can). After all, warm water is the second biggest energy expense after heating and cooling.
I gave my showering process a thought and figured, “OK I just paid money for this water to reach me, then it runs down my body and leaves through the drain. That bit of warm water stayed on me for 5 seconds max and now it’s gone.” So after some research I found a couple of interesting products that I am going to test out. One of the inventions saves energy before it reaches your shower head and the other captures it after hot water is already pouring down the drain.
Evolve Showerhead
If your shower is located on the opposite side of your house or on the second story from the water heater, then you know it takes a long time (forever, if you’re in a hurry) for the hot water to reach the shower.
So what do you do? You turn on the hot water and leave the bathroom while you are waiting for the shower to get hot. Your mom calls, the cat vomits out a hairball, you go grab the paper, check your smartphone and fifteen minutes later you realize you wasted gallons and gallons of hot water. Or worse, you actually get in the shower and wait for the hot water to actually reach you while droplets of freezing cold water is sending your system into a thermal shock.
So what this Evolve showerhead does is quite simple. You turn the hot water on and leave. It senses when the water becomes hot and it closes the flow to a trickle. You notice it, “aha!,” then you jump in the shower and pull on the dangling cord to restore the flow. That easy!
Best part, even the least handiest person can install it. Unscrew the old one, screw on the new one. Inventors say this beauty can save up to $246 in utility bills and 8212-gallons of water per year. Not bad, eh? You can find more reviews and purchase it on Amazon: Evolve Showerheads
Ecodrain
Now, for the second phase of that wasted energy flowing down the drain every day because there is no easy way to capture it. EcoDrain is fascinating invention which was designed to capture some of that departing heat via a unique patent-pending heat exchanger which transfers heat from hot shower waste water to cold incoming water.
Basically it is a small, easy-to-install device with no moving parts. Flattened and sealed heat-exchange channels were developed to maximize the surface area of the heat transfer space and to create optimum flow turbulence in the outgoing waste water and incoming fresh water.
Think of the effect when two hands rub against each other but one is cold and the other is hot, what happens? Heat is transferred from one hand to another, isn’t it?
The EcoDrain is installed directly in the shower drain line and features a double wall of separation between fresh and waste water to eliminate the possibility of mixing, plus an interior non-stick coating to prevent soap, hair or debris collecting inside. Inventors claim Ecodrain cuts water heater use for showers by 25% to 70% and will have a payback period of three to five years.
Now installing these gadgets is not a free pass for irresponsible water usage but if you’re one of those amphibians who just loves shower time, now every shower you take can be 33% longer with no increase in carbon footprint or the amount spent on electricity. Yeh!
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