Codswallop

One of my pet peeves is the amount of water wasted while waiting for the hot water to come through. I would guess it would be one of the major contributors to house hold water waste. In one place I lived in recently the wait was excruciating. It would take at least a minute for warm water to come through for a task as simple as washing your face, and that was after a brand new hot water service was installed!

I've been contemplating this problem while planning my new house. What can I do to reduce the delay in hot water? I've wondered what would be involved in insulating all the hot water pipes. Of course there's the option of diverting the cold water. Setting up such a system to cover all of the house hold taps would be difficult not to mention a pain to use.

Fortunately I caught a re-run of an episode of New Inventors last week. The winner was Enviro Save Water System invented by Lloyd Linson-Smith. What Lloyd has come up with is an ingenious way to divert the cold water from the hot tap back into the system for reuse next time you require cold water, no matter where in the house you need it. The best bit is it's fully automated, you don't have to think about it. When the hot tap is turned on, water flows through a value which measures the temperature. If it is cool the water will be directed to a bypass line and into a bladder. When the water reaches temperature it's redirected back through the tap.

Great job Lloyd, I will be installing an Enviro Save Water System when I build.

Hugg Me

So yay, in their latest budget the Australian government has announced an increase in the solar panel rebate. It now sits at $8k. Nothing to be sneezed at and I'll happily take it when I finally get around to building my house. However I can't help thinking it's a bit of an election ploy to try and win back some marginal green votes. It still works out to be quite expensive to install a solar panel and I'm not sure how many people will take it up. So, could the money be put to better use? It would certainly go a long way towards insulating a house.