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In Hot Water

Bob Vila and building consultant Steve Easley examine how hot water is efficiently used and distributed in the EnergyWise House. Eemax tankless, on-demand water heaters supply hot water for bathing, cooking, and cleaning. Seamless PEX tubing from Vanguard Industries is used to distribute hot and cold water around the house. Radiant heat for the home is supplied by a zoned Wirsbo in-floor radiant heating system.

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In Hot Water

computer-generated transcript - may not be 100% accurate

" In the interest of energy efficiency, many household appliances have been improved and reduced in size. This is a water heater. Steve, how does this work?"

" Well, this is a tankless water heater Bob. It's made by EMax and basically, it's a demand water heaters. It's pretty simple really. Instead having a big tank where you heat hot water 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Basically, what you have is an inlet, the water comes"

" So, the water would come in through here?"

" Right, goes up around this heating element in a course of computer control and then, this here is a 3-stage unit because it puts out about four gallons per minute and that's"

" So, if it comes in here at 50 degrees and you go through here, it might come out at 65 or 70 degrees."

" Right, it's incremental. So, by the time it gets down here, you can have water upwards of a 140 degrees [unk]."

" And it's tankless so,"

" Absolutely, and normally on a tank-type water heater, you'd heat water 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."

" And keep it stored."

" That's right, which is cost you a lot of energy. These"

" piping in this house is, but what material is this?"

" Well, this is a crosslinked polyethylene pipe Bob, it's called PEX."

" Very durable?"

" Very, very durable, and you can run long lengths of these without any kind of joints or any"

" Absolutely. You've start out from a manifold and you can run a continual length of plumbing without any joints, which means, you can have less potential for leaks."

" All right. So, we're in the lower level of the house right now and we're looking at a bunch of these that are coming out of the slab."

" That's correct this is part of the heating system Bob."

" Yeah."

" it's a radiant floor heating system. This is also a PEX different color. But basically, what they've done is they've put down a foil-like material that reflects the heat, they've lay this piping down in the floor, they poured the slab over. You have a boiler, and of course this boiler heats the water not just steam, but the hot water and pumps throughout the entire system and makes for a great radiant heating system."

" And it can be used either in a concrete slab like we have here or it can be put into a traditional wooden floor, right?"

" Absolutely, and of course the advantage of the radiant heat is it gives you the ability to zone. Each one of these can be run through its own particular room. So, every room has its own thermostat so, you don't have issues with hot and cold spot in home."

" So, you have 1 manifold per zone?"

" Right. Well, it could be 1 manifold for the entire house, but you can just zone these to those manifolds with [unk] each of these are."

" So, the energy white house has two bedrooms, and they're on the lower level of the house, it's an upside down house that takes advantage of the views from the living space."

" Absolutely."

" And so, we could be in one bedroom and maintain a certain temperature and have a different temperature in another room."

" Absolutely, and of course the advantage of radiant floor heating is that you have very uniform heat in the room typically standard HVAC system that has ductwork will lose about 25 to 30 cents out of every dollar just 2 leaks in the ductwork."

" Wow!"

" So, you don't have those big distribution lost for the system like this."

" Right."

" And you got a great deal of comfort."

" That's terrific."

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