Plumbing and water heaters

How to prevent flooding, sewage backup and leaks from appliances with a couple of 'smart' devices. Preventing flood damage in basements is a hot topic as we are regularly seeing the effects of climate change in the form of extreme weather events and unpredictable weather patterns. Snow melt combined with torrential sp…

The SANC02 is the first heat pump water heater available in Canada to use outside air for heating water. Great technology, if a little pricey. There are many manufacturers of heat pump water heaters on the market, which, rather than heating water with an electric coil as a normal electric hot water tank does, employ a…

Developed to be used with Uponor pex tubing only, the Milwaukee expander tool will shave tons of time off any plumbing job. Traditional pex piping is installed by slipping a metal ring over the exterior of the pipe, then slipping a union or any other joint inside and crimping the ring to hold it in place. It works, bu…

Heat pump water heaters can help cut your hot water energy consumption by close to one third, particularly when partnered with an air source heat pump. Heat pump electric hot water heaters, good or bad idea? Water heaters are generally the biggest energy drain in a home after heating. so Air-to-water heat pump water h…

Recycling gray water is becoming more and more commonplace. It reduces the burden on urban sewage treatment along with protecting a quickly dwindling natural resource. What is gray water? Or indeed grey water! The term “gray water” refers to all domestic waste water that is drained from sinks, showers, bathtubs and wa…

This is a great little video that illustrates how we are surrounded by potential energy, we just have to put a little thought into how to harness it. We found this video at Whole Systems Design, a New England based company who identify, design, and develop human habitats. In their own words from their website : "We de…

Choosing a water heater - tank or tankless. Tankless water heaters , on demand water heaters and  instantaneous water heaters are different names for the same thing - domestic hot water systems that do not include the storage tank that comes with traditional water heaters.  This type of water heating system can be adv…

Water efficient toilets, compact plumbing design, low-flow fixtures, grey water recovery and rainwater harvesting. There are lots of ways to save water in a home. Home water consumption in Canada: On average, Canadians use over 300 litres of water per person, per day. Compare this to consumption in the UK of 200 litre…

Heating water accounts for one fifth of our energy consumption and there’s a lot we can do to improve that. How to save money on hot water: We will discuss a number of ways to conserve water, particularly hot water, but all of that starts with using less in the first place! Choosing low flow fixtures and toilets will…

Treating and recovering gray water in the home has always been a bit of a hit and miss affair, with DIY solutions often the only option - until now. At last, a packaged solution for gray water treatment & recycling - the Hydraloop Reducing home water consumption is an increasingly important issue, as the world is alre…

A high efficiency mini-split heat pump feeds a heat pump water heater which will take a big bite out of the future energy bill of the Demo House. Our previous update covered aspects of the building envelope, which allowed us to reduce the annual heating requirement to about the Passive House standard of 15 kWh per squ…