Most home use a lot of hot water and heating that water is usually expensive and inefficient. In this third in our “Focus on Green Homes” series, we look at how water is heated, kept hot, and delivered to your hot water faucet in a green home.

Heating the Water – A standard water heater has a major flaw. A conventional gas water heater has a tank with a tube in the center of it and a burner under it. The hot gas from the burner travels up the tube and heats the tube which in turn heats the water surrounding the tube. Now we come to the flaw. The problem is that the water heater is very inefficient since the gas entering the tube is very hot and remains very hot even as it leaves the top of the tube. However, when the gas reaches the top of the tube it is no longer heating the water. A new generation gas fired water heaters overcomes this flaw by using all the hot gas to heat the water.

Another way to heat water is solar water heating. Have you ever taken a drink from a garden hose during a very hot summer day and burned your mouth because the hose had been laying in the sun so long? If so, you have just experienced solar hot water heating. Similarly, a special solar panel (one that heats water rather than making electricity) can separate water into tiny little lines and run the water across the panel, heating the water. The sun heats the water very quickly and the result is pumped back into a larger line that leads to a water tank in the house that stores the hot water until it is ready to be used. On a cloudy day, the tank reverts back to a conventional water heater. Solar heating is only cost effective for very sunny areas of the country.

Keeping the Water Hot -Insulation is the key to keeping the water hot. The more insulation surrounding your water tank the longer the water stays hot.

Getting Hot Water to Your Faucet – To get the water to your faucet while it is still hot, an alternative to copper pipes is needed. Copper pipes conduct heat, removing heat from your hot water while on the way to the faucet. Using materials that don’t conduct heat as well, such as inexpensive Pex tubing, is one way to solve this problem. In addition, a smaller line can get the water to the faucet faster. Pex tubing can be used in green homes to get the water there now, while increasing the efficiency of the entire hot water system in your green home.

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