This study describes the use of water heating by fermentation heat recovery from a suction-vented composting system of dairy farming. We elucidated the characteristics of water heating using exhaust gas from a composting facility with fermentation heat recovery, which generated a calorific value of 30 kW using two heat exchangers (Exp. 1), and we also determined the capacity of a heated water supply of drinking water for dairy cows in full-scale dairy farming (Exp. 2). In Exp. 1, the flow rate was 1–14 L·min
−1 and temperature of the heated water was 48.3–31.0 ℃, and the heat was used to heat the water up to 1.41 MJ·min
−1. The heat exchange efficiency reached approximately 90 % under these conditions, and the overall heat transfer coefficient was stable at 80–90 W·m
−2·K
−1. In Exp. 2, to construct a system for supplying drinking water to a milking herd of 118 cows, water at 33.3 ℃ was supplied at 14.4 m
3·d
−1 (122 L·d
−1 per head of cow). During this period, the amount of heat used for heating the water was 1630 MJ·d
−1. In addition, to ensure that the fermentation heat recovery facilities remained in good working conditions, we treated or used the dew condensation water generated by the heat exchange process.
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