There's nothing more wasteful than waking up in the morning and having to wait ages for the water to warm up to proper bathing temperature. This device would tie-in with your home's hot water delivery system using valves and a reservoir to drain the standing cold water into. From there, the water could be plumbed back into the water heater, OR into a supplimental toilet tank. So when your alarm clock goes off at what ever (always too early) morning hour, a radio, or bluetooth sending unit tells a central control box to open valves in the hot water system to allow for the cold water (of a specified temperature range) to be purged from the system, and reused. Sh*t, Shower and Shave, all on the same water.-- Letsbuildafort, Feb 25 2004 Watering timers http://www.amazon.c...ev-t=D3640U3GS53SRF [1st2know, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004] One of thousands... http://www.grundfos...73386256AE9005326AEHot water recircualtion is widely known to exist. Hot water recirculation based on timers or operator actions is widely known to exist. Which leaves you with a supplemental toilet tank... ? [ato_de, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004] As long as you shit last.-- yabba do yabba dabba, Feb 25 2004 Well, even if you don't, you're still saving.-- Letsbuildafort, Feb 25 2004 Seems like too many pieces in this idea. It's like five ideas in one. I'll just comment on one.
I like the idea of a reservoir for toilet water. I think there are many ways to save shower water that aren't currently used, and this would be a good start.
//(SSS) all on the same water.// Reminds me of a hotel I stayed at once in Mexico that had installed a toilet and sink in the shower to save space.-- Worldgineer, Feb 25 2004 They're usually separate?-- Mr Burns, Feb 25 2004 Yes, at least to a distance that makes it difficult to multitask. It was a very cheap hotel.-- Worldgineer, Feb 25 2004 SSS at the same time? hmmm....-- yabba do yabba dabba, Feb 25 2004 For about $40USD you can get a lawn sprinkler timer that opens the valve at the desgnated time, then closes it, say two mitutes later. Of course, you'll have to use garden hoses, but then prototypes are rarely pretty. {+} for the idea.-- 1st2know, Feb 25 2004 The title gave me the willies. Nothing worse then involuntary vomit first thing in the morning...
Anyways, Shower in the toilet water, pee in the shower water. Is this conservationism? And how is this a bed add-on? It seems more a bathroom add-on. +-- k_sra, Feb 25 2004 Well, it could tie-in with pressure sensors in the bed that when the matress is unleaded at a certain hour, it could preform this automatically. I dunno.-- Letsbuildafort, Feb 25 2004 What's wrong with five ideas being combined into one? It's not like the internal combustion engine, or any other significant invention that I can think of (always glad to be convinced otherwise), comprises exclusively one idea. If that were the case they wouldn't be great inventions because their application would be accordingly limited.-- lemon tetra, Feb 25 2004 "Nothing worse then involuntary vomit first thing in the morning", so...voluntary vomit is superior?-- half, Feb 25 2004 Vomit in general doesn't seem to me to be a good thing. Alarm clocks are voluntary and yet not voluntary (by the time you wake up), so I couldn't be sure which word to use in reference to a vomit alarm clock. Of which, this idea is not one.-- k_sra, Feb 25 2004 Well, invoulentary is better than voulentary in my opinion - both of which I've experienced first-hand.-- Letsbuildafort, Feb 25 2004 vol-u-vent?-- po, Feb 25 2004 I do like this. <Aside> This morning I was awoken not to the radio at 7, not to the alarm clock at 7:45, but to the radio auto turning off at 8. <Aside> Mmmmm....vol-au-vent.-- silverstormer, Feb 25 2004 what does it mean in english? a lot of wind?-- po, Feb 25 2004 Yeah, sounds about right [po].-- silverstormer, Feb 25 2004 <Reminiscent> Last time was due to copious amounts of Jack Daniels and multiple Grolsch. </Reminiscent>-- silverstormer, Feb 25 2004 So, that would be "voluntarily induced involuntary" then?-- half, Feb 25 2004 Exactly, [half] - one too many Jello Shots that ruin the bunch.-- Letsbuildafort, Feb 25 2004 I know what a Jello Shot is, but I can't help but think of some kind of custom hot-load ammunition - maybe along the line of Glazer slugs or something.
Non-lethal, animal by-product, fattening ammunition.-- normzone, Feb 25 2004 very cool idea! +-- nomadic_wonderer, Feb 29 2004 This depends on whether one has a 2-port valve or 3-port valve system. In the 3-port system you have hot water close to the heat exchanger (i.e. at source) and the length of the 'dead leg' of pipework is minimal. The downside is that to be at source the pump and heating circuit needs to be active all the time. Most Building Management Systems have generic and optimised time schedules that will start at a given time (and start earlier if not up to temperature via a self learning algorithm). The main problem that you cannot get away from is that you would have to 'shake a leg' a few minutes before you wanted to get to the bathroom. Notwithstanding, for a price I could do this tomorrow. The price, of course, is commercial and not domestic so it is out of most people's league.-- gnomethang, Feb 29 2004 random, halfbakery