Why is hot waste water (shower, sink…) not reused for heating?

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Why is it not used again and wouldn’t it be very efficient to combine with a heat pump for reuse?
Especially since water from shower or sink isn’t usually very dirty, couldn’t it be stored for a while in an isolated tank so that e.g. a heat pump can run more efficient on it than on usually colder air or colder ground water?

In: Engineering

27 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

By the time the hot water hits the drain and travels down uninsulated pipes it cools down to ambient temperature. So there’s not much useful energy left anymore at that point. Now some places use ‘grey water’ from sinks for irrigation. ‘Black water’ from toilets must be on a different system so that adds to cost.

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