Domestic hot water system in residential buildings: Production, distribution and consumption energy loss. Monitoring campaign in two Danish detached houses

The share of the energy use for domestic hot water (DHW) in the total energy consumption of buildings is becoming more and more prominent. Depending on the building typology it varies between 20% to 50% of the total energy usage for old and new built single family house, respectively. The aim of this paper is to determine the energy losses in the DHW installation with division between: a) loss at the production point, b) loss in the distribution, and c) loss at the draw-off points using the results of the measurements of DHW consumption in two single family houses connected to district heating grid. The total Eloss for the two houses vary between 17% and 26%. For House 1, the production loss accounts for 8%, the pipe loss for 15% and loss at the draw off points for 3%. Moreover, the results shown that the layout of the house, in particular the placement of the bathrooms with showers or bath tubs has significant impact on the size of the distribution losses.