eli5, how does a city hot water system work? How does hot water remain heated while traveling through pipes to our faucets?

Question

Hello everyone, recently my city has been doing some repairs to the city’s hot water system and i was without hot water for about 3 weeks.

That got me wondering, how exactly does this work? I read something about a heating agent but i don’t know what that means. And how does the water stay hot while travelling from the place it gets heated to our homes?

Thanks!

In: 25

Answer 1

So for hot water you either have the city provide hot water directly to you or they send really hot water that goes though a heat exchanger that takes the heat from the city and inputs the heat to your build.

They can also do this with steam where they send steam to your building and you take the heat from the steam though a heat exchanger to heat up water in your building.