Building a New Home? Go Green with Your Plumbing Layout!Be environmentally friendly by giving your new home a green plumbing system. |
All About Water Heaters and Water heating
Electric Water Heater Operation Electric Water Heater Repair Traditional Type Cold Water Return |
|
Green plumbing saves you time water and energyIt’s time we took a good hard look at our plumbing layouts when we build new homes. There is a good opportunity to save water and energy by utilizing a well planed plumbing layout instead of just hooking the pipes up to the fixtures willy nilly without any plan. When you wait at the shower for the hot water, you’re running valuable water right down the drain; water that was heated at one time by your water heater, so your system is wasting energy as well as water. The long wait for slow hot waterIf your hot water pipe holds a gallon of water, it will usually take about a gallon and a half of water being run down the drain before the hot water arrives. The reason for this is that as the water travels through the hot water pipe it gives up it’s heat to the piping material. The blue prints for building a new home do not show how to plumb the house. The person doing the plumbing usually just does it however he feels like doing it. Typically when plumbing a house the piping is run along joists and make 90 degree right angles to get to the fixtures. This causes the piping to be quite a bit longer than if the pipes made straight runs from the heater to the fixture or from fixture to fixture. Many people think that by using ¾” pipe instead of ½” will make the water flow faster, but the flow is limited by low flow fixtures to below the flow capabilities of ½” pipe. If you use ¾” pipe it will take more water to fill the pipe just making maters worse. Running one main hot water piping run from the heater through the house and branching off with smaller ½” lines to feed the various fixtures is known as “branched” plumbing. Looped plumbing is when the pipe goes from the water heater outlet to the first fixture, and then from that fixture to the next, and then the next, etc. Looped plumbing is used when hot water circulating systems are implemented. Manifold systems use pex plastic piping from the heater to a manifold, and smaller pex lines connect the manifold to the fixtures. The small pex lines hold much less water than ½” copper pipe. Use short piping runs, use 1/2" pipe when possible, use insulation on hot water pipesPlumbing your house with the shortest possible piping runs will reduce the amount of water that needs to be run out of the pipe to get hot water saving water and energy. Get out that floor plan and figure out the best piping layout you can. Short runs are especially important for heavily used fixtures. Insulating the hot water pipes keeps them warmer longer so it’s more likely the hot water will arrive more quickly saving water and energy. It also reduces the energy losses while the hot water is flowing. What about hot water circulating systems?Circulating systems save water but waste huge amounts of energy. There’s another type of hot water distribution system that doesn’t waste energy and saves the same amount of water. It’s called a hot water demand system. Hot water demand systems pump the water from the water heater to the fixture like a circulating system, but it only runs long enough to get the hot water to the pump which is located under the fixture. When the pump detects the hot water it shuts off. Hot water does not enter the cold water line. Used with a looped plumbing layout provides a highly efficient hot water distribution system that eliminates wasted water and reduces wasted energy. By using looped plumbing one pump will service all of the fixtures in the home. Demand system pumps typically run only a minute or less and so the electricity costs are less than $2.00 per year. Demand systems can be used with existing dedicated return lines. Converting from a traditional circulating system to a demand system can save hundreds of dollars per year in water heating costs. Manufactures of these systems include Chilipepper Sales, Metlund Enterprises, and Taco Pump Company. The cost of the demand pumps run from $200 to $700. Make the plumbing layout in your new home green and save time water and energy.
|
||