Campsite Showers Water Heating. For Chris P.

That does indeed work. Even my small diameter garden hose gets the internal water very hot if left in the sun for an hour or two.

Z.

At other than our recent weather we a probably a good deal cooler than Spain (or parts of it) but yes I can see how it works here too, every little helps. the Spanish one I saw was black too. 

Well maybe a mixture of all these things might make a considerable difference in these times of high fuel bills

So, there's several hundred metres of buried pipe and the air for the ventilation system is brought into the house through it and arrives at ground temperature, which means it is cooled in the summer and warmed in the winter saving on the cost of running the air conditioning that provides cooling and heating.

There are some complications - especially where the ground is used to cool air in the summer - you get a lot of condensation in the pipe - so not only is some means of drainage required, but also some means of preventing mould growth - one way of doing that I gather is to use a pipe with a small amount of silver incorporated into the plastic.

    - Andy.

heat ex changers may be the safer way to avoid mould spores in the house air. of course if the duct you draw air from is shared with cables running warm, it may not be such a great idea in summer.
Mike

So Zoom, there is no one fits all answer. You can only try judging the likely usage for say 90%+ of the time to start to compare. Then try the different options either on their own or in combination and then judge against cost and efficiency. Like you said the customer has jumped the gun and bought a generator, was this wise. Given that he has then can the immersion heater be used or tweaked for a realistic outcome? Is propane viable? then all the water/gas bye laws and good practice not to mention Sam & Elahi considerations etc etc .

Bet you wished you never got involved

heat ex changers may be the safer way to avoid mould spores in the house air.

Indeed, but then the efficiency losses start to mount - the incoming air (in summer) is often only slightly cooler than the desired indoor temperature (especially after a few weeks of summer when the process has gradually warmed the soil around the pipe) - sticking it through an acceptably-small-to-fit-in-the-house sized heat exchanger will reduce the temperature difference (and benefit) further. You'd likely also need to power and extra fan and still have to periodically clean the exchanger surfaces (same problem). At some point a ground source heat pump (for cooling or heating) starts to look attractive.

There are similarly interesting problem with extracting heat from waste water. In a very well insulated house more energy can go on heating tap water than space heating - and all that heat is thrown away after one use. There have been a number of schemes to try and recover that heat - there are a number of challenges - but probably the most difficult is that of heat exchange surfaces becoming coated in the slimy mess that seems to accumulate in waste water pipes.

   - Andy.

Do you know ebee, I am getting to the stage where I am about to walk away. There is no way I would ever consider connecting up the dilapidated shower block. It is currently a run down death trap.

Z.

Well Zoom you can hold yer head up that you tried to solve your customers problems rather than just give standard rapid options and opinions and then scarper like many would have done in short time.