Recovering Heat from Wastewater

With all the emphasis on recycling and reusing graywater, it’s easy to forget that hot water going down the drain carries with it most of the energy that was used to heat the water. By using that hot water to preheat incoming cold water, as much as 60% of that energy can be recovered. Under ideal conditions, recovering that heat can actually double the effective efficiency of a water heater. In the past, systems designed to capture this waste heat have been cumbersome and expensive. The new GFX system from Vaughn Manufacturing has greatly simplified wastewater heat recovery, with amazing results.

The GFX (for