Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Re-using the heat in bathwater in Britain

dynomight.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 257 posts

Re: Re-using the heat in bathwater in Britain

#241

Post by philliphaydon »

refurb wrote: post #210
philliphaydon wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taiwan, Japan, Singapore. Only countries you can safely drink tap water in Asia AFAIK.

Also South Korea, Brunei and Hong Kong (apparently). But I have friends who rinse their mouth, brush with tap water in Vietnam and haven't gotten sick. It obviously varies a lot by which city (or even within the city), but the water is tested and obviously highly chlorinated (by smell). I mean, I wouldn't drink it regularly because I don't think they look for non-biologic toxins like metals.

I've rinsed my mouth in most countries in SEA. But never drink it. In Taiwan you can drink tap water but vast majority of people boil it because apparently alot of the pipes in homes are old so they boil it first. Sometimes I'm lazy and don't want warm water so I just fill my bottle with tap water.

Re: Re-using the heat in bathwater in Britain

#242

Post by socialismisok »

fomine3 wrote: post #211
socialismisok wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japanese houses are more likely to be cooler but have local sources of heat, from what I understand. For example a kotatsu is a warm space. Heating locally is such an interesting idea to me.

The local heating "idea" is now low valued because moving between cold and hot area isn't good for health (called "heat shock"). It is recommended to make house insulated well and heat all rooms, for new houses. https://japantoday.com/category/national/agency-issues-warni...

Fascinating!

Re: Re-using the heat in bathwater in Britain

#243

Post by oezi »

roenxi wrote: post #229
oezi wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary: everyone who invested in Europe in building any sort of capacity was handsomely rewarded (incl. nuclear). Energy prices are so high because too many guarantees were given to too many parties to entince investment.

They aren't building new capacity in most forms of energy generation. Eg, in the UK they've basically only building renewables [0], and not in sufficient quantities to maintain their electricity production. The story is similar in most EU countries last I checked. Compare to, say, India to see a healthy approach [1]. Sure the market is signalling that anyone who can bring energy to the table will be rewarded, and try…

It is a bit weird to call building of fossil plants "healthy" when it is leading us down to environmental destruction.

Nuclear on the other hand is game over everywhere except China. It won't come back within the next 20 years. After this renewables and power grids optimized for renewables (across countries and with lots of decentralized storage based on electric cars) will make any type of energy generation which isn't wind and solar infeasible.

Nobody is choosing de-industrialization. Cheap gas from Russia has been keeping energy cheap in Europe. People are choosing solidarity with Ukraine even if this means some harder years.

Re: Re-using the heat in bathwater in Britain

#244

Post by dev_tty01 »

wcoenen wrote: post #7

I tried this once on a cold winter day: I let the bath cool down to room temperature (which was <20C) before letting it drain, with the bathroom door open. The result was a lot of condensation on the windows in the surrounding rooms. I figured the high humidity was going to cause more damage than it saved money, so I scrapped the idea.

We run a humidifier in the winter (Eastern US) because of dry winter air made even worse by the heating process, so this would be a benefit if there is some air circulation to move that moisture throughout the house.

Re: Re-using the heat in bathwater in Britain

#245

Post by dev_tty01 »

Retric wrote: post #158
SECProto wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s likely overly cautious I'm not in the country shown on your map. The area of Canada I'm in would be somewhere roughly around the 90" line on that map. It's between the 2000 and 2500 lines on this map [1] (the seasonal property is around a 1500 contour) The municipalities pay for the main to be installed. They wouldn't spec it to be 8' (2.4m) deep if it didn't need to be. edit: the contours in my source are n…

I agree they need to bury it nearly that depth but while IPC 2018 section 305.4 puts water pipes at least six inches below the frost line many places increase that to 12” for water and or sewer. I don’t know much about how Canada does things.

Yeah, you really don't want those sewer lines freezing...

Re: Re-using the heat in bathwater in Britain

#246

Post by dev_tty01 »

sweettea wrote: post #6

Not discussed: hot water in houses increases humidity. In modern well sealed houses, that can result in unfortunate mold growth.

This strongly depends on the climate. In some climates like where I live, we run a humidifier in the winter to deal with the super dry winter air. It is built into the central HVAC for our modern well sealed house.

Re: Re-using the heat in bathwater in Britain

#247

Post by SECProto »

Retric wrote: post #235
robertlagrant wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original point was that a shower would have to use more energy to heat shower water in winter. Not sure now how any of your comments relate to that - do you agree with it?

The relationship is many people don’t experience that. Aka it’s a you might experience X not a you will experience X. A poster mentioned failing to get a cold shower in Singapore, but Singapores ground temperatures are much higher than we are used so well water is going to be ~25C year round and tap water can be significantly warmer than that.

People don't experience it because the water heater output is a consistent temperature. There's nothing to experience with increased consumption of electric/gas/heating oil, especially when those concurrently increase for home heating

Re: Re-using the heat in bathwater in Britain

#248

Post by joe5150 »

theGnuMe wrote: post #141
joe5150 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Arizona, "cold" water at the tap can easily be in the neighborhood of 100F/37C all summer. We kept a water filter pitcher in the fridge for drinking water, so it wasn't really a problem there, but it did make it impossible to take a truly cool shower or follow a recipe that instructs you to rinse something in cold water.

I grew up in AZ.. just run the water until it cools down. Unless your showering from an outside hose it'll be 50 degrees just from being underground. If you aren't getting that then something is very wrong with your plumbing I'd recon. Like, the tap intake comes into the house after the swap cooler on the roof kind of thing. Plus the evap after the shower.. that'll cool you off.

Water lines in Arizona single family homes are very commonly routed through the attic, where they can get very hot, so your imagined scenario isn't really that far off from reality for a lot of people.

I don't know how many gallons I would have to waste to get the tap to start delivering water at 50°F. I could run the faucet for several minutes and still get water that was body temperature or warmer.

Re: Re-using the heat in bathwater in Britain

#249

Post by Retric »

SECProto wrote: post #247
Retric wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relationship is many people don’t experience that. Aka it’s a you might experience X not a you will experience X. A poster mentioned failing to get a cold shower in Singapore, but Singapores ground temperatures are much higher than we are used so well water is going to be ~25C year round and tap water can be significantly warmer than that.

People don't experience it because the water heater output is a consistent temperature. There's nothing to experience with increased consumption of electric/gas/heating oil, especially when those concurrently increase for home heating

That assumes the water going into the water heater changes temperatures which as I just said isn’t always the case. Some people take “cold” showers year round and the tap is very consistent.

Trivially people in the tropics don’t have a winter, but well water can similarly have very consistent temperatures independent of seasons.

Re: Re-using the heat in bathwater in Britain

#250

Post by kortilla »

theGnuMe wrote: post #240
kortilla wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where you grew up, but most of the population gets tap water from the CAP, which means the water ran for hundreds of miles in canals across the desert before going into a water treatment plant. It’s 90F+ easily in the summer in any modern builds in Tuscon/Phoenix.

Cap water is recharged into the groundwater aquifers. Also you’ll notice no water towers. And it’s Tucson… not Tuscon.

> Cap water is recharged into the groundwater aquifers.

Not as part of the “to tap” process.

> Also you’ll notice no water towers.

Not relevant. CAP boosts elevation many times. A water tower is needed if you don’t have a high pressure water source like the CAP canals and the salt river reservoirs.

> And it’s Tucson… not Tuscon.

Don’t emotionally lash out with irrelevant shit. Focus on the content, not the presentation.

Post reply on HN