After recently posting a story sharing the brilliance that is the Swedish Orbsys water and heat recycling shower, it was brought to our attention that there is a homegrown Canadian variety as well. The EcoVéa shower by Reveeco is made in Quebec, Canada, and works based on the same principles as the Orbys we recently wrote about.

Which one is better? Hard to tell, but both are light years ahead of the showers most people jump in on a daily basis. Reveeco provides a savings calculator on their website so you can dial in your specifics, but in general terms they have this to say about the potential water and energy savings: 

"A conventional 10-minute shower generally consume around 95 liters of water. Thanks to the EcoVéa, this consumption can be reduced to only 32 liters, wich is an economy of 66%. An extended shower would only have a marginal impact on the extra amount of water necessary, increasing the savings to 80% in the case of a 20-minute shower. 

Reducing hot water consumption naturally reduces the amount of energy necessary for its heating. Consequently, the EcoVéa allows savings of up to 80% in energy consumption of a hot shower."

With a concept this simple in theory that has such huge potential for conservation, it's hard to imagine why we haven't seen this type of technology sooner, and hard to imagine why we would build a shower any other way now that it's available. Then again, many people also live with a dripping tap or faucet - which is an easy fix.

After taking a moment to visualize the amount of the water and energy that is literally going down the drain while showering, it's hard not to want to run out and buy one of these pronto. Grey water heat recovery units that capture some of the heat from shower drain water have carved out their own place in the green building market, but showers like the Orbsys and EcoVéa one-up even that type of system.

The more dire our climate situation seems to get, the more brilliant minds we see step up and provide us with seemingly obvious advances in resource and energy management that we just hadn't thought of yet.

As a great way of saving money on bills, if you have an Energy Star washing machine or not, by choosing low temperature laundry detergent you can even use cold water for washing laundry - saving a lot of money on hot water and still gets clothes clean. 

 

Grey water and heat recovery shower
Grey water and heat recovery shower © Reveeco