Attention Makers

CATEGORY: EDUCATION

Instant Water Heater

MAKERS: Bharat COUNTRY: India

In an age where conserving electricity is the need of the hour most of the households and apartments have turned to solar water heaters as an alternate source of energy. Solar water heaters placed on the roof top supply hot water to the respective households. A major drawback of this system is that every morning the cold water stored in the pipeline coming from the solar heater needs to be flushed out before the user starts to get hot water which results in a significant amount of water being wasted. Water is too precious to be wasted in this fashion and therefore we have adopted an instant water heating system to overcome this drawback. Instant water heater is the optimal solution to reduce wastage of water and time. This water heater is installed near the hot water tap. When the user turns ON the tap, if the incoming water from the pipeline is cold, the system senses it and turns ON a heater thereby providing hot water. Once the hot water from the main solar heater starts flowing, this instant heating system turns OFF automatically. Instant heating concept can save water, time, and energy.

 

The Purpose

Solar heat has become a major source of energy in an age where we are running out of electrical energy. This energy is being made use in lot of households. A very common use of solar energy is in water heating. Apartments have solar heater installed in their rooftops from which hot water is supplied to all the flats in the apartment. This is a very efficient way of utilizing solar power but the major drawback of this system is that the water that is initially released from the tap is not hot and it takes a good 2 to 3 buckets before we get hot water. Consider in a city like Bangalore where the approximate average height of a modern apartment extends up to 15 floors. Assuming each floor to be 10 feet long and a pipe of approximate diameter of 60mm and the fact that the solar heater takes a good 5 minutes before it starts pumping out hot water, we can calculate the amount of water that would be wasted. Any flat in the 15th floor would have to flush out 2.58m3 (683 gallons) of water, and similarly a house in the 14th floor would have to flush out 5.17m3 (1366 gallons) and so on. If every floor has 5 flats and taking the whole apartment into consideration this would lead to the wastage of approx. 4,09,800 gallons of water. This results in a daily wastage of a significant amount of water. To counter this problem, every house (flat) can be provided with a water heater before the tap which can provide hot water for the initial duration of time before hot water from the solar heater starts flowing into the tap. This water heater uses a thermal sensor and relay to activate the heating coil. The technique used is that incoming cold water is sensed by the sensor and in turn activates the heating coil and when the incoming cold water is replaced by hot water, this sensor helps in turning OFF the heater. Thus, this automatic switching ON and OFF of the heater not only saves water but can also be used to heat water when the solar heater is not functioning. The main objective of this work is to find the solution to the wastage of water every morning in households installed with solar water heaters. The heating system also has to be of limited size so that it can fit in the consumer?s washroom without using up a lot of space and causing inconvenience. This system supplies hot water as and when required by the user either when the initial water is cold or when the solar heater is not supplying hot water. Therefore, this system can act as a substitute to the existing solar water heating system. The heating system that we have built can automatically sense the temperature of the water inflow and also whether the user has turned the tap ON and accordingly switch the heater ON or OFF. Thus, this system that is installed in the consumer?s washroom is an automatic water heating system and the user does not have to worry about not being able to consume hot water or even turning the system ON or OFF.

The Technology

The title, ?Instant Water Heater? is appropriate because as discussed earlier this is a solution to the problem arising in solar water heaters due to the initial time taken in discharge of hot water. This calls for a solution involving instant water heating and this project does the same. To achieve this, multiple copper pipes of very small diameters have been used so that lesser amount of water is exposed to larger heat. Copper has been used for pipes as it is a good conductor of heat. Nichrome wire has been used as the heating element. Nichrome wire heats almost instantly and can also withstand high temperatures. We have used a temperature sensor to sense the temperature of incoming water and accordingly switch the heater ON or OFF automatically according to our requirements. All these factors ensure that the water heats instantly and automatically.

Additional Details

Work Conclusion: This instant water heater is designed as a solution to the problems arising due to solar water heaters. This system only supplies water when the incoming water from the solar heater is not hot enough for the user to utilize it and this is made sure with the help of a temperature sensor which is suspended in the CPVC pipe at the point just before where the water flows into the heating block (copper pipes upon which the heating coil is wound). The output of this temperature sensor is driven by a relay circuit which either cuts off power

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