We are building a new house in Wisconsin, and we are very interested in installing a drain heat recovery unit. Our plumber has installed one before and his response was that if we buy it, he'll install it.  So I need to (1) source the product, and (2) choose between "GFX Technology" and "Power-Pipe" -- as those are the units our utility will provide a rebate for.

Links for distributors and "order online" at the Power-Pipe (renewability.com) website are all "coming soon." They seem to sell it at Home Depot and Sears, but only in Canada.  I found one US-based reseller with this product.

GFX Technology concerns me a little bit because so much of their website and Google results seem are littered with various legal complaints they've filed and statements that various government reports, publications, this, that, and the other thing are all fraud and deliberately falsified.

Any advice on one unit versus the other, or a good place to source the Canadian products from the USA?




 

I have a PowerPipe installed for roughly a year now. The difference in temperature from in to out is significant.

I ordered online no problem but then I'm from Canada. Try calling them directly, which I had to do to confirm some information anyway.

We bought both of ours directly from GFX. Our first one was about 4 years ago and then again last spring when we built our second home. We didn't have a problem either time. But I agree I was very leery the first time we ordered from them. I think they are a good company with good intentions, but not the best marketing or business skills.

I can say I would buy a unit again in a heartbeat, the energy recovered from our cold incoming water to the drain water is great, usually about 15F and that warms the water going in to the water heater as well as the cold side feed. So instead of 40F water filling your hot water tank and then mixing 40F cold side with 120F hot side in the shower, now you’re mixing 55F with 120F so you can back off on the hot side there as well.

Looks like you can order the Power-Pipe from EFI:

http://www.efi.org/wholesale/pdfs/power_pipe.pdf

(It's their wholesale division- don't know if they insist on selling to licensed plumbers only or not...)

Can anybody point me to performance data on the Power-Pipe? It seems like an inherently better design than the GFX, I'd guess you might squeeze another 5-10% of performance out of it, with less flow restriction to boot.

Plumbing these heat exchangers for balanced flow, feeding both the hot water heater and the cold water supply to the shower, not just one or the other seems to provide a significant performance boost (particularly compared to unbalanced, feeding the water heater only.) See:

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/femp/pdfs/techfocus_gravity_film_ex.pdf

EFI is a US distributor for Power-Pipe there's at least one web-store in GA selling them, but at a significant markup over the EFI price. Since it happens you're in WI, they seem to have a special phone # for Wisconsin customers on this product: 800 962-7015 Call it (or have your plumber call it)- let us know how you make out!

[edited to add] http://www.conservationmart.com/p-714-power-pipe-drain-water-heat-recovery.aspx

Or maybe not:

http://www.gfxtechnology.com/NRCan-3_24_06.pdf

Scroll down to the conclusions section on P18 (p21 of the PDF pagination)- it depends kinda on how much of the total hot water use is for showers.

Thanks for the replies. I got a phone number for a Milwaukee, WI contact for EFI, from our Energy Star verifier. The product was not shown on their website but I was able to get the info to our builder. Pending the final plumbing design we look forward to installing this product!

Hello The Power-Pipe has been independantly tested and proven to be the best in its class by NRCan (http://www.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/com/index-eng.php) and the renoun University of Waterloo. See http://www.renewability.com/power_pipe/index.html (bottom of page especially for merits certified by third parties). It is available in the USA from Energy Federation Inc. From their website, http://www.efi.org/location.html, I found the following: Midwest Office N1070 Quality Drive Unit B Greenville, Wisconsin 54942-8064 USA Map This Location Phone: 920-757-6848 / 800-962-7015 Fax: 920-757-6452 Office Hours: Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Hope this helps!

Absolutely - I'm pretty sure the contact person I got from our Energy Star verifier works at this location. We will be meeting with the plumbing contractor next week to find where all the pipes will go ... if we have a shower pipe draining through our mechanical/utility room, we'll be going for it!

> 40F water filling your hot water tank and then mixing 40F cold side with 120F hot side in the shower, now you’re mixing 55F with 120F

So a 19% savings on heating costs for a shower. This is about $25/year in my case.

Plumbed for balanced-flow configuration you're filling both the tank and the cold side with pre-heated water, not just the cold side.  And the delta-T on the preheat with 40F in from the street for any decent sized version (like a 3"x60" or 4"x48") is going to be well over 15F- more like 25F+ at shower-rate flows.  At ~2gpm you're recovering roughly 50% of the heat from 90-95F drainwater.  At 40F in from the street that's a 25F delta-T, 65F filling the tank + coldwater stream.  See:

http://www.gfxtechnology.com/EFF.pdf

(These are modeled on older slightly less efficient versions too.)

In low-utility priced areas (and low volume use) the payback will take a decade in utility savings alone.   Heating water with electricity at 20cents/kwh the payback would be less than 3 years for a 3 showers/day use.  But in terms of savings in marital-counseling costs from never leaving your spouse with a cold shower only the return is quite good (priceless, in fact! :-) ) 

Seriously- it's the extended capacity of the hot water system that's the biggest selling point (particularly for electric tanks, since the recovering times are so long), but the fact that it's like adding 25kbtu+/h to the burner where the "fuel" is free doesn't hurt.  In warmwater climates/months it effectively turns a ~32kbtu tank burner in to an endless-shower on-demand (but the tub-filling capacity is still the same as without it.)  Some might view it as a water-waste enabling technology though. ;-)

Heating water with natural gas in a 0.62EF tank at 60 cents/therm, payback would be over a decade, but still well before the thing rotted out and needed replacement.  There's a cost effectiveness model at the end of this document:

http://www.regie-energie.qc.ca/audiences/3637-07_2/DDR3637_2/RepDDR/B-12-GI-23Doc1-2_RepDDRSE-AQLPA_3637-2_28sept07.pdf

For me & my family it's about 50-60therms @ $1-1.50/therm- not big money, but well worth it for guaranteed sequential shower capacity on my low-temp indirect/buffer with the modulating boiler dialed back. 

It's not a simple a model in my case.  Peak loads on the combined heat/hw system are the big DHW loads, which are several times my design-day heating load.  By cutting the peak DHW load in half I can reduce the peak heat output of the boiler, extending burn times for normal loads, increasing net efficiency.  For me the savings are somewhat greater than simply the water-heating savings, since it improves the net cycling efficiency of the heating system.  But these are particulars related to my combi-system architecture, not generic at all. YMMV.

BTW: When in doubt, go bigger.  If longer doesn't fit, go fatter.  A 4" x 48" unit has about the same heat-transfer surface area as a 3" x 60" and performs similiarly.  Effectiveness is all about the heat-transfer efficiency, which goes up with surface area.  Differences in performance between simlar models of different vendors is largely attributable to the relative squareness of the cross section of the coil-wrap piping, which affects the contact surface area.  The labor costs are about the same whether it's big 'un or a baby, and the price difference for the units themselves aren't linear with size- get the fattest & longest that actually fits.

There's a handy li'l online calculator based on the 2007 Canadian testing & average annual incoming water temps to dozens of Canadian cities:

http://www.ceati.com/calculator/

Those in the northern US can get a pretty good order of magnitude handle on it by picking the Canadian city closest to them (or with the most similar climate, even if somewhat distant.)

For figuring the right natural gas rates, users can convert cubic meters to local units:

1m^3=...

...0.36 therms

...0.036 decatherms

...35.3 cubic feet

Be sure to adjust the presumed shower lengths and shower temps to your actual measured times if you want better accuracy.

OK I'm doin' some homework...

Thermodrain doesn't appear anywhere on the EcoInnovations website, nor could I find any other web-available data on the product. All web references to Thermodrain heat recovery are from 2009, and there doesn't seem to be any web-published test data or efficiency curves independent or otherwise (nothing, nada, nix). A flash in the pan? Yet to be released? (Have you been working for them long? :-) ) Show me! Most web references are less than a month old, mostly postings on web forums by Daniel Beauchemin, president of EcoInnovation (is that you?).

EcoInnovation does not publish pricing on the web.

I could not find a single web-reference to PowerPipe/Renwability claiming EnergyStar rating.

Independent testing of Watercycles does indicate somewhat lower efficacy than the competition for models of similar size.

The EcoInnovation Eco-GFX line appears to be re-branded product from other manufacturers (previously Watercycles, now... ???)

All web references to EcoInnovation in Quebec are less than a year old (been in business long?)

PowerPipe, Watercycles, Retherm, & GFX have undergone comparative testing on some models, conducted by SustainableBuildings and Communities, Natural Resources Canada.

Claims of comparative efficiency & cost-effectiveness for Thermodrain relative the competition are in the category of "as-yet unsubstantiated claims made by an interested party". Show me the data...

TO: Dana1 and gbcomp

I am Daniel Beauchemin, the president of EcoInnovation technologies. Our company manufactures the ThermoDrain and Eco-GFX. Our company has been in operation since 2005. My objective in writing on this forum today is to get some of the facts straight. Something I will do time to time on forums like this one for people who are misinformed about our products.

Drain water heat recovery devices are a wonderful technology. All manufactures have their strong points and weak points. It is up to the consumer to decide for themselves what suits their needs most.

- ThermoDrain has been marketed by our field representatives for the past 2 months, this is why you did not find it on our website.

- Renewability Energy Inc. has recently removed the Energy Star logo from their website. You can still find references of the Energy Star logo on printed marketing materials and 3rd party websites. Call me, I will send you a copy and links.

- EcoInnovation has and will never "re-brand" its products. We manufacture our Eco-GFX and ThermoDrain units at our facilities in Quebec.

- EcoInnovation changed its name from Inventroment in 2007. We launched our new website www.ecoinnovation.ca in 2008. We have been in business since 2005.

- In 2008 we had to rename our product from GFX to ECO-GFX due to the market confusion with GFX-LC manufactured by Watercycles and distributed by Waterfilm Energy Inc. (gfxtechnology).

- [i]PowerPipe, Watercycles, Retherm, & [u][b]ECO-GFX[/b][/u] have undergone comparative testing on some models, conducted by Sustainable Buildings and Communities, Natural Resources Canada.[/i]
See the Natural Resources Canada website with the 3rd party efficiency numbers and the names of the products that have been certified. I do not see GFX listed anywhere.
http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/residential/personal/retrofit-homes/questions-answers.cfm#q45

The ThermoDrain does have a 51% efficiency and not 52% as indicated by gbcomp posting above.  Contact me, I will be more than happy to provide you some test data and savings calculations.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Daniel Beauchemin
President
EcoInnovation Technologies
1-888-881-7693
http://www.ecoinnovation.ca

So the model name similarities are then what, just a coincidence? Intentional confusion by marketing dweebs?

So let's look at that referenced NRCAN website, http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/residential/personal/retrofit-homes/questions-answers.cfm#q45 to see how EcoInnovation product compares:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• ECO-GFX
  G3-40 (75 mm / 3 inch drain at 46.0% steady state)
  S3-60 (75 mm/ 3 inch drain at 49.0% steady state)
  S4-40 (102 mm / 4 inch drain at 44.7% steady state)
  S4-60 (102 mm / 4 inch drain at 51.0% steady state)
• Watercycle™
  DX-4048 (102 mm / 4 inch drain at 44.0% steady state)
  DX-3058 (75 mm / 3 inch drain at 42.0% steady state)
• Power-Pipe^®
  R3-42 (75 mm / 3 inch drain at 42.4% steady state)
  R3-48 (75 mm / 3 inch drain at 47.3% steady state)
  R3-54 (75 mm / 3 inch drain at 49.2% steady state)
  R3-60 (75 mm / 3 inch drain at 53.7% steady state)
  R3-66 (75 mm / 3 inch drain at 55.0% steady state)
  R3-72 (75 mm / 3 inch drain at 58.8% steady state)
  R3-120 (75 mm / 3 inch drain at 67.7% steady state)
  R4-36 (102 mm / 4 inch drain at 42.4% steady state)
  R4-42 (102 mm / 4 inch drain at 46.1% steady state)
  R4-48 (102 mm / 4 inch drain at 52.7% steady state)
  R4-54 (102 mm / 4 inch drain at 54.7% steady state)
  R4-60 (102 mm / 4 inch drain at 58.4% steady state)
  R4-66 (102 mm / 4 inch drain at 59.9% steady state)
  R4-72 (102 mm / 4 inch drain at 62.9% steady state)
  R4-120 (102 mm / 4 inch drain at 72.2% steady state)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So...

...on performance by length, the longer 4"x 60"  ECO-GFX underperforms a significantly shorter 4"x 48" PowerPipe...

...and performance by diameter, the skinnier 3"x60" PowerPipe outperforms a ECO-GFX 4" x 60"...

...and apples-to-apples...

...a PowerPipe 4x60 kicks a 4x60 ECO-GFX's butt by a huge margin...

... I get it...    (Not exactly a selling point...)

The NRCan testing of various models I referred to that DID include GFX, not to be confused with Eco-GFX (which DOESN'T appear, model & brand name similarities notwithstanding) is documented here:

http://www.regie-energie.qc.ca/audiences/3637-07_2/DDR3637_2/RepDDR/B-12-GI-23Doc1-2_RepDDRSE-AQLPA_3637-2_28sept07.pdf

ThermoDrain's independent testing documentation...??? 

I don't see IT listed or documented anywhere (not with NRCan, not even your own company's website- what's with that?)  Hopefully it performs better than the ECO-GFX line relative to the competition.

Or a how about publishing ANY documentation?  Why does it have to come backchannel via private email? (Not exactly a  confidence inspiring approach, eh?)

Having been admonished to do my homework, that's what I'm trying to do. Like I said- show me the data... (and not JUST me, like a peek a the hot-watch display in a street vendor's trench coat, make it public if it's for real.)  Let's get to the facts behind the marketing smokescreen.  So far smoke is about all we've seen on Thermodrain- I'm ready for the real goods.  Maybe there's fire there, but how are we to know if you make it this difficult?

I too have been searching around for accurate information on drain heat recovery and have been dismayed by the confusion out there. This thread has been very useful. It appears that the Powerpipe is best in its class, both in terms of efficiency and minimal pressure loss (according to the NRCan report posted above). However, there is a lot of confusion about "GFX", "Eco-GFX", "Thermodrain" and what is certified or not, etc.

I was struck by GBComp's comment of Sept 11 ("!!!PEOPLE, DO YOUR HOMEWORK!!!").

Then, lo & behold, following Dana1's request for "facts" from GBComp, Mr. Daniel Beauchemin himself addresses this thread.

Like Dana1, I too would like to see real objective data.

And, from what I can tell, GBComp and Eco-Innovations are both located in the same region, southwest of Montreal (coincidence?)

Oh, so you're the admin for this site now? ;-)

And yet in your search for "TRUTH" you go on about company bashing around Renewabilty's, alleged labeling faux pas, posting unverifiable email traffic as evidence?

Capital-T "Truth", is a legal/moral/religious/perceptual matter. I have no issues with the truth (small-t)- all I'm asking for is the independently verifiable facts (small-f  is good enough), about the price & performance of the product you are championing, don't appear to be publicly available.

I've not bashed the Thermodrain product, only requested that the data be made public, (albeit while noting that backchannel email is suspiciously NOT public, and possibly not verifiable.)  Pointing to NRCan test results that imply Eco-GFX line underperforms the PowerPipe line isn't product bashing- it's merely highlighting independently verified facts about the prior product from EcoInnovation.   I DO hope the Thermodrain line outperforms Eco-GFX, but how do we know, eh?  How do YOU know?  I took your advice, did some homework, came up with nada.

The "truth" is, I don't know squat about Thermodrain, but I'd like to.  In the meantime I'll base purchasing decisions on price & independent test data, leave it to the legal-beagles chase the patent, trademark, & labeling issues. (I really don't CARE about UL or EnergyStar labeling minutae and those labels don't affect my decisions on a product like this- I do care about performance data.  YMMV.)  All we have on Thermodrain so far is your unsubstantiated unverifiable price/performance claims, and a string of invectives about a competing company (who happens to be a performance leader in published independent test results.)

Lessee, go with unverifiable advice from some anonymous guy spewing invective on the internet, or go with NRCan test results...  who has more cred?

(Tough choice, eh?! :-) )

I look forward to seeing more than mere forum posting allegations about Thermodrain- better mousetraps drive industry standards higher.

Re-posting your allegations in more bold-faced type doesn't make them any more or less factual, just more obnoxious, less credible. They're still just the postings (without verifiable evidence) of some anonymous guy on a web forum, eh?

I'm not assuming anything- I'm trying to get to the independent verification. Nor am I alleging your statements here were false, only that a quick websearch doesn't come with much evidence to support either your allegations of impropriety on the part of other manufacturers, or even published FIRST-party information (let alone independent verification) to support either the price or effectiveness of the EcoInnovations Thermodrain product line.

There seems to be a lot of infighting behind the scenes in this biz, brand/model name confusion (intentional or otherwise), allegations of patent infringement, etc.. The US and Canada are both first-world countries, with reciprocal trade agreements in place- the industry will sort it out eventually.

It doesn't surprise me if other players in the biz watch web-forum traffic about their stuff, or that they take pains to GENERATE web traffic about themselves, sometimes obscuring their identity. EcoInnovation not only changed their product line from that which echoed even the model names of other vendors, they changed their company name. I'm not sure what that's all about (nor do I particularly care), but your strident advocacy here isn't enhancing their credibility, nor does it make YOU come off as a disinterested party.

Without even published price & model listings or third party testing data there's nothing to discuss. Maybe they've got something, maybe they don't, but they don't seem to be playing a very good publicity game. It's not rocket-science to put it up on a web-page even with preliminary efficiency with a footnote about awaiting independent confirmation (and yes, name the lab doing the testing and the anticipated date of the verification testing results), yet somehow they haven't. Instead we have month's worth of web forum astroturfing and invitations to call/write for further information. (If this was a marketing consultant's advice on how to launch the product, get a new marketing consultant.)

There's no point in calling them- until it's efficacy has been independently verified it's simply not possible to assess whether it's a better or worse value than some other vendor's product at some other price point. (Do your homework indeed! What, did you take it to your own lab to verify it yourself? Are you asking others to do the same? That's some homework!) Anything they might say over the phone or in email falls under "unsubstantiated claims of an economically interested party". That doesn't mean that what they say is false, only that it is not yet independently confirmed. It would be a show of good faith if the preliminary numbers were published, even if they needed to be adjusted after independent testing.

But product info only available by email or phone? From a company that recently changed it's name, whose prior product line was chock full of model names & numbers nearly identical to those of a competitor? Mayhaps it was GFXtechnology who was the model-name imitator, or maybe it was the converse- don't really care to dig up the trademark infringement stuff, but it's curious that EcoInnovations was the company who amended their model name with the ECO- prefix, shortly after changing their company name from Inventroment in 2007, after being in biz under that name for only a coupla years. The company is less than 5 years old since it's inception (which is fine, but) where's the credibility here?

OTOH: Where's the credibility THERE: http://www.gfxtechnology.com/VGFX.html

Seems they still mention Watercycles on some of their other older pages, but not on their noo-improoved (link-free) front page. And the ordering page is now "under construction". (Archive it quick, before they take it down! What an industry! Hard to keep track of who the players are if they keep changing their names, product names, all the while sniping at one another, eh? :-) )

To: Dana1

EcoInnovation is a respected company that does not merit the sort of comments or the accusations you are making here in this forum towards it and the products we manufacture . Our employees and customers deserve better.

Thank you,
Daniel