Anybody ever build a wood fired water heater?

[IDASHO]

Or even just a wood stove?

Im looking for ideas as how to build a wood fired water heater on the cheap. Simple heat exchanger setup, coil of stainless steel tubing inside the flu of a wood stove is my idea. Entire thing would operate without a pump, using convection.

Need to build a hot tub for the wife:beer:

Any thoughts?

[Racer_X]

Just buy her one of these:

http://snorkel.com/index.php

[IDASHO]

For that much $$$, she can go jump in the creek :lol_hitti

Im talking CHEAP man! :spit:

[Franz©]

Does converting a 400 gal bulk milk tank to a stainless hot tub count?

How about a U coil in the top of my basement wood burner piped to a radiator in the other room of the cellar with a circulator pump?

By the way, Stainless sucks as a heat transferr metal in coil aplications. Heat transferr coils exposed to wood fires or woodfire gas strams that circulate water tend to become creosote condensors, and require frequent cleaning. Strict thermal siphoning on a wood fire can get nasty and become a steam generator. Pumping is better. If the pump goes out on mine there is about a 10 minute window before steam builds in the heating coil.

BTW, when you get tired of maintaing the hot tub, it converts easily to a self heating sawdust box spa. Damn near as hot, and more fun in the shower afterwards. It helps if you know a sawmill operator.


You need to be very careful about coils in stacks, leaching too much heat from the smokestack can ruin a stove's draw.

[Kevin54]

Im looking for ideas as how to build a wood fired water heater on the cheap. Simple heat exchanger setup, coil of stainless steel tubing inside the flu of a wood stove is my idea. Entire thing would operate without a pump, using convection.


Add a little corn mash......The guys in the hills can tell you how to do it. LOL!!!

[kbs2244]

I would think about a reg gas fired one, the kind with the flue up the center of the tank, setting on top of a 55 gal barrel stove as the first 5 feet of exhaust stack. With dampers for intake air and at the top of the stack you should be able to get a pretty long burn and the tank is even insulated.

[Franz©]

Kevin hills ain't a strict necessity, and stainless makes a lousey still. It makes an even worse worm.

[Ford Junky]

I didnt build mine (I have a Woodmaster outdoor wood furnace)but ya could build one like it, and heat your house, shop and your water. A fire box made outa 1/4" plate, with a water jaket around it. A circ pump and plate exchanger and your laughin. I use it to heat everything and love it.

Rod

[RAYJAY]

links

http://www.thesustainablevillage.com/servlet/display/products/byCat/11/24/74/


http://littlecityfarm.blogspot.com/2007/10/affordable-homemade-wood-fired-hot-tub.htm


http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/energy_family_news/4204882.htmll

and here one with a vid

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-build-a-wood-fired-hot-tub/

[le6920]

I am guessing you mean for outside use. If indoors and you rob your stove of a little combustion with the pipes inside, you are going to run it real dirty. If you get it from the exhaust, it could be done. You have to be really careful as there an explosion potential depending on how you design it. Some type of coil or tank around the exhaust flue would heat the water without robbing your stove. You would need the tank up high on the second floor though, as the hot water would rise?

[Stephenw]

..........

[jklingel]

Check at hearth.com

[comp]

anything new ???

[geothermal]

I know this post is a little late, but i just found it. I have built my own hot tub heater. It has none of the problems that other posts have described. It produces >100k btu/hr and have over 500 firings on it. It sits beside the hot tub and naturally circulates the water using thermal energy. It is so energetic that the tub does not stratify. It burns clean at full power and does not have problems with creosote buildup. See my pic.

[dakota_522]

i watch a youtube channel alot called "daves farm" and he made a wood burning heater and he said it heats up the whole building and it looks well thought out

[Bigrhamr]

For a wood fired hot tub on the cheap we used to set one up in hunting camp. Took an old steel tank that was about five feet across and cut it in half. Fastened a pallet to the bottom inside to give you something to stand on and put some pipe insulation around the rim along with some drink holders. Set it up on cinder blocks and build a fire underneath. With a ripping fire it would come up to 105 degrees in about an hour. There's nothing like being up in the mountains in a snowstorm after a hard day hunting, sitting in a nice hot tub with a drink in your hand. We were known for miles around as "The camp with the Pygmy Crockpot"
In the planning stages we were talking about running pipe and a heat exchanger, eventually ran out of time and decided to just try it and it worked great just like that.

[woodman1]

I just found this forum searching this subject on the net. And I built one to heat up my 4 person hot tub I got FREE on graigslist this summer.
I used 2 propain tanks welded end to end and cut in half to form a miniture bbq. grill and then made a heat exchanger from soldering 1/2 copper into a grid that is hooked to the pump and circulates on low speed. The only draw back it takes about 4hrs. and uses a lot of elec. and the copper cereasotes up real bad.

I realy want to build a thermosyphon type.
I found this on the net........
The coils apear to be about 1 1/4 .
Would the bigger tubing increase flow rate?

[reedwesd]

I don't know if this helps but here is one I found.
http://inlinethumb33.webshots.com/34912/2197505880067271393S500x500Q85.jpg (http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2197505880067271393faDwFc)

[woodman1]

I wish geothermal would log in and post detailed pics. of the one on his avatar. I pm'd. him but haven't heard back.

[blood blister]

I'm about to make a heat exchanger from woodstove to watertank. I have stainless pipe, and a woodstove made of plate steel, like the Fisher brand. I read the exaust is where I should be drawing my heat from. Won't I get a better transfer if I was in the firebox?
I was going to run a loop into a water heater that was gas, and use the circulator pump to push it through the floor slab. There is an expansion tank on the setup, and the loop of the wood stove would just be to the water tank. In a box shaped stove, what would you think the best layout of the pipes be? The old kitchen wood stoves had one loop near the top of the firebox, back to the copper tank mounted in the rear. I would be inclined to do the same. comments? pit falls? Thanks, Blood Blister

[nate379]

My parent's heat their domestic hot water with the wood stove that heats the house.

There is a coil of tubing in the stove on the outside of the firebox (where all the ducting is hooked up. It exits into an electric water heater as a storage tank for the hot water. In the summer they turn the power back on to it.

Been working fine just like that since the early 1980s.