Green Water Heaters Have a Pump! - written by William Lund

Some water heaters are more energy efficient than others, but not by much. Some water heaters are inherently green, like solar water heaters. But by adding a pump any water heater can be made greener, including storage tank, tankless, solar, boiler, gas, and electric.

Tankless Hot Water

Usually it's the tankless people that proclaim their water heaters as being green, due to the fact that they use less energy than tank type water heaters. The reason of course, is they don't have a big hot water tank losing energy 24 hours a day. This results in a 15 to 20 percent reduction in energy consumption according to most of the tankless water heater websites.

However, according to a study of tankless water heater performance done by the Australian government, it takes tankless water heaters 10 to 20 seconds longer on average to deliver hot water to the fixtures.

Australia has a huge drought going on and saving water is very important. Since it takes longer to get hot water the user ends up running more water down the drain. Using a demand hot water system solves this problem by getting the hot water to the fixture without running any water down the drain. It's a good tool to use as a drought solution product.

Tank Type Water Heaters - Gas or Electric

It doesn't mater what fuel type the water heater uses, or even what kind of water heater it is. Virtually any water heater will work with a demand pumping system. Storage, tankless, solar, boiler, they all work with demand hot water pumps. As long as you have hot water piping from the heater to the fixture a water heater pump will save you water.

Water Heater Pumps Are Green

Hot water is the last bastion of water conservation potential. There are low flow fixtures, toilets, water conserving appliances, gray water systems, and all sorts of gadgets to detect leaks and whatnot. It's time to turn our attention to the residential hot water system and start saving all that water being wasted.

Estimates at water savings due to hot water demand systems like the Chilipepper and the Metlund D'mand system range from about 10,000 gallons per year to 16,000 gallons of water per year.

Saving Water Big Time

If we use a more conservative figure, say 5,000 gallons of water each year, and we could somehow upgrade all of the single family homes in the United States, of which there are over 50,000,000 (Fifty million), the resulting water savings for the US would be 250,000,000 (two hundred fifty trillion) gallons of water per year.

There would also be two hundred fifty trillion fewer gallons of water being fed into sewer systems and thus a large amount of energy would be saved just from not having to treat the sewage that would have resulted.

Greener Tankless Hot Water

The tankless water heaters benefit even more since they waste more water due to start-up times. Someone who wants to go green and install a tankless hot water heater to save energy and reduce their carbon foot print has no excuse not to also install a water heater pump. The cost for some hot water demand systems is less than $200 and will add the savings from not wasting all of that water to your energy savings.

You will be saving energy and water and reducing your carbon footprint substantially while experiencing the convenience of fast hot water.