Water Heating System: Its Primary Components and Functions

Author: jasminshakespeare | Posted: 06.02.2012

Heat, a form on energy used for several applications, is produced from various sources and is distributed using different methods. The most common sources of heat consist of sunlight, combusted fuel, and electricity. Depending on the agent used to transmit heat, the performance of those sources may differ. Water and steam are popular agents of heat distribution in a thermodynamic system. They are frequently used in industrial and residential boilers or water heaters. Their efficiency in transferring or distributing heat is determined by other components comprising the system.

A water heating system consists of a number of elements that collaborate to effectively create and distribute heat. Typically, a certain standard of heat guides the process employed in a system, consisting of the work needed, quantity of water used per time, and maintenance requirements. A home water heater, an example of a simple water heating system, usually consists of the basic elements, such as fuel source, heater, pipeline system, and economizer. For heaters that use sunlight as fuel source, solar panels are put up on the rooftop or at any open areas outside the house connecting to the main vessel.

Ordinary water heaters utilize heating oil, propane, or natural gas to produce heat. These fuels are ignited to directly or indirectly send heat to the boiler to blaze the water inside. The measure of heat required changes depending on the quantity of water and on the size of the system. The rate of heat production may also depend on the size of the heater proportionate to the size of the other components. Therefore, large water heating systems require large furnaces and bulky fuel sources.

The boiler placed side by side or above the furnace is filled with tap water. Common water heating system distributes constant volume of water. Reusing condensed steam or cooled water is the most economic technique of distributing hot water. Direct contact water heaters are filled with water and are shut off to the nozzle by a connecting path to the system to permit the cyclic process. They use convection or conduction to transmit the heat needed to boil water.

Upon attaining the needed heat, water then enters the pipeline network installed in the house, specifically within the walls and ceiling. From the direct contact water heater that heated it, it travels in speed after being pumped into the pipes, which retains the heat even at distant points in the network before water finally cools down and goes back to the boiler.

An economizer that operates on waste steam is now utilized for waste water heat recovery. This adds to the performance of the water heating system because water is preheated before it gets in the boiler again. That way, fuel consumption and the waste products are minimized.

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