Using wasted heat to keep use less energy when heating water

I’m talking about the pipes that run through your house and bring water to your sink… not that pipe.  This new pipe would be ideal for situations such as the shower where you usually require hot water but once the hot water has been used, it then exits through the drain.  In order to get this water hot, you need a water heater which can take up quite a bit of energy to get all that water to the temperature you want.

The idea behind this invention is to use that heat from the water exiting the drain to heat up the water that is entering the sower.  This way the water heater won’t need to heat up it’s tank quite as high because the wasted water will meet it half way and heat it up to the desired temperature.  The way this works is by inserting the pipe containing the warm drain water inside the pipe containing the unheated water entering the water heater.  The inner pipe should be made of aluminum or a metal that can dissipate heat well.

The pictures shows what the piping would look like if it were cut in half.  The warm waste water is moving to the right while the surrounding cooler water is moving to the left and receiving heat by conductive heat transfer.

Urinal Carnival Game

Do you remember that game that you find at the carnival where you are supposed to shoot water from a squirt gun into the middle of the target to make your horse/car/etc. move across the board, and the first one to the other side wins? Well I think someone should bring this same idea to the men’s bathroom! Install one of these games into the unrinals and have contests would totally making going to the bathroom that much more enjoyable.

Not only would this make the bathroom a fun place to hang out, it would keep the bathroom cleaner.  Similar to the urinal fly, it should keep most of the man juice inside the bowl rather than all over the wall.  Plus, girls get the couch in their bathroom… Now guys get fun carnival games in our bathrooms.