Home Made Hot Water Storage Tank For Inide Wood Furnace , Check Out Pics

[toolhawk]

Ok here it is 1/8 th stainless , L2'xW14" x H3' approx. 52 gallons started this morning and finished about 6pm. picked up pump at a resale shope for $37.00 (awesome) , fittings $39.00 , stainless was left over from another job (free) .I am going to try to get hooked up by next weekend , I am going to work on the heating coil to put inside the heat chamber (not the fire box ) . then just plumb it all out , last months heat bill was $44.00 thats with a week at zero degees and lower , gas hot water tank , oven and gas dryer 2700 square feet of livable space 73 degrees all over the house , this will preheat the supply into gas hot water tank ,

OK LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK !!!!!!!!!

 

[Butch(OH)]

Looks like unlimited hot water to me and the craftmanship looks A-1.

 

[drmiller100]

how do you get the water from the stainless tank into the hot water heater????

is your stainless tank pressurized?

 

[toolhawk]

Simple

City supply into coil inside stove chamber , that goes into storage tank , that will have a circulation pump that will take it back through the coil back ( a tee )and again into tank continuiously , there is a 3/4 copper supply line into from storage into natural gas hot water tank , so when you open a faucet the storage tank will be the supply for the hot water tank.

So I will eliminate the city supply into hot water tank , the only supply to hot water tank will be from storage tank , I will post more pics as I complete unit

 

[Patrick62]

Did you consider...

...is this tank hooked to city pressure? I am not a mechanical engineer or anything fancy like that, but flat panels are a "not great" idea under any sort of pressure. You may discover that when hooked to moderate pressure that your tank may end up looking like a ball. :bang:

City pressure is something over 40 psi, and the tank has 13,440 lbs against the smallest dimension.

-Pat

 

[ericjeeper]

so you are putting a coil of pipe?

into your forced air wood furnace? make sure you have plenty of expansion space and a pressure pop off valve. Please explain in a little more detail how you are going to heat the water with the burning wood.Thanks

 

[toolhawk]

pressure tested

Pressure tested to 60 psi for 3 hours , your right about flat panels , but I used 1/8 stainless and is only 14 inches wide 24 inches long and 36 inces tall, has a pressure relief valve , I am going to fab up the heating manifold today , I don't think I will need to worry alot for expansion , water will be continuosly circulated by pump not just sitting there boiling , I also have a thermal couple so I can watch water temp with a digital read out, I do have a extra outlet so I may try to install a pressure gauge !!!! Its still a experiment so keep the ?s coming it giving me more ideas.

THANKS

 

[drmiller100]

ummmm, you DO need to worry about expansion.

if you look at the "whole" system, you are taking cold water and making it hot. if someone isn't always running a water tap, you are going to have pressure issues.

as far as 60 psi, that is pretty marginal. a decetn water hammer can get quite a bit higher tehn that.

for giggles, go do a search on "boiler explosion furnace".

 

[farmermike]

My charmaster wood furnace has a water heating coil already installed. It's just a pipe that makes a loop towards the back of the stove. It doesn't use a pump it's gravity fed. I use an old hot water heater as a resivor(sp). The key to getting mine to work is the water heater has to be a couple feet off the ground. The gravity heating really works. The cold water coming into the tank settles to the bottom of the tank and the heating effect makes the water circulate.Had to take the top part of the insulation off the water heater as the relief valve would blow a couple times a day.

 

[toolhawk]

expansion ??? help me understand !!!! check out new pics

Farmermike so do you have expansion problems ??? if so what do you do ? if not then why should I ?

Why don't you have problems with your natural gas hot water tanks , they take cold water and heat it up ?

I am placing a water temp gauge and a pressure gauge on the tank

 

[ericjeeper]

Yes they do heat water

BUT, big but They are thermostatically controlled to only heat it to 120-150 degrees. Not all the way to possibly steam temps. To protect things downline. you need a T&P valve. one that will dump at a preset temp or a prest pressure. My solar panels will dump a standard Wh t&p valve so I had to install a pressure only valve.It will dump if the system ever sees 75 psi since it is glycol it dumps into a bucket.
To be safe in your situation I would just spend the 40-50 bucjs for an St12 hot water expansion tank. and the 10 bucks for a t&p valve

 

[toolhawk]

keep talking

I DO LIKE THE EXPANSION TANK IDEA !!!! WHAT IS T&P ??? Why would not a standard pressure relief valve work , like on a hot water tank,

Again thanks for the help,

 

[ericjeeper]

T&p

temperature and pressure same as is on a water heater. open at 180 degrees OR some many psi (not sure right off hand)

 

[Patrick62]

T&P valve

Will open if temperature exceeds 180 deg (already mentioned), and will start releasing at 150 psi. Sounds like a decent idea on a setup like this. There isn't anyway the pressure could exceed system pressure without pushing live steam back out the pipes!! Yikes!!!

I can certainly see the temperature exceeding 180 without even trying hard.
This naturally depends on demand. The problem is I don't see a easy way to regulate it to some sort of reduced input.

I am quite simply amazed that the tank was pressure tested to 60 psi :jawdrop:

-Pat

 

[farmermike]

I don't have an expansion valve. There is a relief valve on the water tank that is on all water heaters. When I filled it the first time I held the relief valve open to let the air out of the tank. I occasionally will open it but rarely does any air come out of it. I used a hot water heater that the elements had burned out on. The cold water line comes into the top of the water heater. The hot water also comes out the top. Towards the bottom of the tank the way low line goes inot the furnace3 at the bottom and top line goes inot the top. It's all a convection theing. My actual hot water heater is about six feet away from this. Works real good. The convection thing really works its all gravity in how the water warms up. The line going into the hot water heater is ually about 150 degrees. The pipe going into the furnace is a special pipe that chartmaster uses. If I remember right charmaster has pictures of this on thier website. I believe the website is charmaster.com I sure like this part about my stove.

 

[drmiller100]

on the top of a hot water heater are three pipes. one is the blowoff.
one is inlet, and one outlet.

on the inlet, if you remove all the pipes, there is a diptube that goes down towards teh bottom of the tank, and ensures the cold water goes to the bottom of the tank.
pull the dip tank out, and make sure the screen in the diptube isn't plugged or your convection might not work right.
While I'm there, I remove the corkscrew filter gizmo to improve flow.