Performance Characteristics of PEX-hot Water Delivery System Using Uponor AquaPEX Piping

Posted on Tuesday, March 30th, 2021

Client	Uponor Ltd.
Professor(s)	Dr. Ali Elwafi, Dr. Maria Parra and Dr. Federico Fernandez
Program	Building Science
Students	Centre Manager: Dr. Theodore Mirtchev Investigators: Dr. Ali Elwafi (Principal Investigator) Dr. Maria Parra (Collaborator Professor) Dr. Federico Fernandez (Collaborator prof.) Mrs. Marialuisa Arnal Mr. Karl Murray (Research Assistant) Mr. Michael Stevens (Research Assistant) Mr. George Zanetti (Research Assistant) Mr. Leandro Carandina Mr. Simon Hunt (Research Assistant) Mrs. Irina Khurhina (Research Assistant) Final year students: Marjan Riazi Cyrille Baleng Valuable Contributors: Mr. Shane Barteaux (Technologist) Mr. Rob More (IT Technologist) Uponor Team: Mr. Kevin Wong (Canadian Codes Manager) Mr. Craig Bradfield (Director of Marketing) Mr. Joey D’Addese (Construction Services Supervisor) Mr. Rene Paris (From klimar Agency)

Project Description:

The project impacts advancement of propagating energy and water efficient piping system by helping the industrial partner validate the superior performance of new technology—both quantitatively and qualitatively. In particular, the project is enabling College students and professors to perform a range of applied research activities to test, categorize, and benchmark the performance of the company systems against conventional piping materials and their associated installations. The industrial partner has particular interest in assessing energy efficiency, thermal comfort, water quality and usage efficiency, regulatory compliance, product life-time, ease of installation, and ease of maintenance of its systems. The ultimate aim of the project is to help our industry to understand the superiority of PEX technology.

The presented part of the project is the first workstream out of three defined workstreams. This part of project includes actual installation for Hot Water Delivery (HWD) System that was designed and built specifically to investigate water delivery time, water volume waste, water-flow and zero-flow heat loss, as well as the overall energy efficiency of the system. The 30.48 m (100 ft) real-life test system was developed to imitate the layouts and sizes that would be found in a residential condominium installation using Uponor’s PEX pipes, commercially available fittings and outlets to ensure that the data obtained is as consistent with real-world practices as possible.

The results showed UA values of 3.81 W/m.K for flow condition heat loss and rough estimates of 30- minute cooldown times for zero-flow conditions. In addition, the activation of the re-circulation system reduced the usable hot water delivery time by approximately 84% and consequently reduced the wastewater volume by about 76 %. In addition, insulating the system by applying one type of insulation on the external surface of the pipe reduced the usable hot water delivery time by approximately 21 % and consequently reduced the wastewater volume by about 18%. These results suggest that the test systems and methodology that have been created for this project phase is able to provide realistic and accurate results.

Moreover, to find the potential solutions for improving the performance of the hot water delivery system, the further investigations on the impact of running cold water line, using different types of insulation and water-saving valve are developed and in the process of implementation.

The project is funded by NSERC and the industrial partner (Uponor Ltd.) contributing cash and in-kind annually to this project for three years. Uponor is the world’s largest manufacturer of PEX piping with 100 years of expertise in piping and home building. This project is one of only four ARD-2 grants in Algonquin College’s history.

Short Description:

The project is a workstream of the 3-year Uponor-Algonquin College project that investigates the efficiency and performance characteristics of hot water delivery system water piping systems utilizing Uponor AquaPEX (Cross-Linked Polyethylene) pipe.

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