[Greenbuilding] Drain Waste Heat Recovery

[Carmine Vasile]

Nick: I want to thank you again and Richard for your past support. Last week 
another supporter emailed me the NRCan report posted @ 
http://www.gfxtechnology.com/NRCAN-6_29_07.pdf, by C. Zaloum (Gerald Van 
Decker's old boss), M. LeFrance and A. Parekh.

Page 4 refers to their 2006 report @ www.gfxtechnology.com/NRCan-3_24_06.pdf 
as follows: "This study continues the technology assessment of Drain Water 
Heat Recovery (DWHR) devices initiated in 2005 and presented in Performance 
Evaluation of Drain Water Heat Recovery Technology at the Canadian Centre 
for Housing Technology, C. Zaloum, J. Gusdorf and A. Parekh, 2006."

I used the 2006 report to prepare the graphs @ 
www.gfxtechnology.com/OregonTaxFraudGraphs.pdf to support a tax fraud 
complaint being investigated by the Oregon State Attorney General. I suspect 
this is the reason for more shenanaigans and the need to defame gravity film 
heat exchangers made Canada by Watercycles & ReTherm, Zaloum, et. al.

These shenanigans include reporting false dimensions & performance. For 
example, Table 1 on pg. 10 of the 2006 report indicates three 60" long 
gravity film heat exchangers (GFX) were tested and Table 3 indicates the 
effectiveness of a Model G3-60 GFX -- made over 20 years ago by Smart Drain 
Inc. -- is 71% for Configuration "A" (unequal flow) and 61% for 
Configuration "B" (equal flow). These effectiveness measurements agree with 
those on the GFX-Website (pp. 2,3 @ http://gfxtechnology.com/T-C.pdf) and 
have been verified by several independent testing labs.

Table 3 also indicates that 60" gravity film heat exchangers made by 
Renewability and ReTherm offered lower effectiveness values; 67%, 56% and 
55%,46%, respectively. Nevertheless, the 2007 report concluded: "The best 
performing unit was the Power Pipe R3-60, and the best per foot result was 
the GFX G3-40 pipe."

To help support this erroneous conclusion, Table 5 on pg. 27 of the 2007 
report indicates the G3-60 I loaned Mr. Zaloum --- to replace the one shown 
@ http://gfxtechnology.com/R-2000.pdf that was made by Doucette Industries, 
Inc. --- somehow grew by 5" and the R3-60 by 4". Longer GFX's have higher 
efficiency as illustrated in the Oregon Tax Fraud graphs --- BUT Appendix 1 
("Fully detailed analysis", pp. 35-37) uses a much lower effectiveness for 
this G3-60 -- 58.8% instead of 71% from Table 3 of the 2006 report. The 
curves in Appendix 2 do not agree with measurements presented in the 2006 
report or those presented on various Web sites and in published reports.

Not content with low-balling GFX's performance, Zaloum, et al defamed 
gravity film heat exchangers made by Watercycles & ReTherm; based on a 
flawed theoretical analysis, incorrect equations in Section 3.8 that fail to 
accoung for huge variation in heat transfer coefficient ("U") of every 
gravity film heat exchanger, erroneous equations in Tables 2 & 3, falsified 
dimensions and inaccurate effectiveness measurements. The maximum 
theoretical heat transfer efficiency for the ReTherm S3-60 is 75%, compared 
to 100% for the others tested, yet Zaloum, et al used the same set of 
erroneous equatiuons for this model too. Consequently, the effectiveness and 
NTU curves in Figs. 6, 7, 8, 9, 12 & Appendix 2 are grossly inaccurate and 
appear to have been falsified by including transient effects that vary 
differently as the coil & drain flow rates change; as does the most 
important parameter of all the U-factor.

Get the picture?


>From: "Nick Pine" <nick at early.com>
>To: <greenbuilding at listserv.repp.org>
>Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Drain Waste Heat Recovery
>Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2007 05:38:46 -0500
>
>Sacie writes:
>
> > Must admit that when I see Vasile's name on an incoming email, I simply
> > hit
> > delete.  If everyone did that, there would be no one to be irritated by
> > his
> > nonsense.
>
>And I daresay we'd be worse off with our fingers in both ears, since 
>Carmine
>has an excellent understanding of physics and he's a prolific inventor with
>lots of patents, a [Grumman] Boeing Inventor of the Year, IIRC. It's 
>surprising he
>isn't even more bitter, after a) fighting different unreasonable local
>plumbing codes all over the US, b) failing to get the Energy Star people to
>list GFX, and c) failing to get US customs to stop GFX knockoffs at the
>border, even though they seemed to infringe his patent.
>
>I wouldn't say his words are nonsense, nor blatent advertising (albeit
>close), but he could suffer fools more gladly :-)
>
>Nick