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A comment on Re-using the heat in bathwater in Britain. Parent comment

Re:Re-using the heat in bathwater in Britain by cameronh90 on Sunday October 30, 2022 @03:49PM (#33397945)
Unfortunately, very few homes in the UK have any air ducting. I'm looking at installing a MHRV system at the moment, but planning the ducts is a nightmare. Brick walls, lintels and structural joists everywhere with no headroom between floor and ceiling.

We absolutely should be doing it in new builds though, and we're not.

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Re:Re-using the heat in bathwater in Britain by nsteel on Sunday October 30, 2022 @04:46PM (#33398490)
New build flats have some air ducting. At least, mine did in two rooms (it wasn't for AC). But maybe you meant new build houses.
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Re:Re-using the heat in bathwater in Britain by hedora on Sunday October 30, 2022 @11:30PM (#33401758)
That sounds rough. Consider putting in air to air mini-splits instead, and leaving window cracked open, etc. As a bonus, each room will get its own thermostat, and cooling / heating.

The mini-split will only require coolant lines, and will have a sufficiently high coefficient of power that this + whatever ventilation exists might use less energy than heating with natural gas (or resistive electric), even with the loss of efficiency from not using heat exchangers.

(Doing both things would be much better, of course. Retrofitting is hard.)

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