Add On Wood Furnace To Assist Hydronic Heat?

[Deerwood]

Hi Everyone
I've been looking for some info on using my Daka wood furnace to help heat the water for my infloor heat. I'll try to keep this as short as possible. My house had the pex tubing ran under may basement slap (about 1000 sq/ft) but it was never hooked up. My neighbor (a retired plumber and the person who originally put the pex in) said he would help me install everything to make it functional such as the heating source and manifold. He said to keep things cheaper I could use an electric hot water heater to heat the water which worked until I saw my electric bills jump up by $300 a month.
Daka sells a Hot-Tube Domestic Water Pre-Heater that you install inside the furnace to heat water. Does anyone know if it would work to circulate the water through the furnace into the hot water heater I have to help bring down the electric needed to heat the water or am I once again using the wrong tool for the job? If this did work, do you need to constantly circulate through the furnace? Any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated!
On a side note, I know other people that have used there gas hot water heater for the infloor heat and they say it works great.

 

[Yarz]

I think your idea would work to help reduce your electric usage. I have no experience doing so, but I've read about people using some type of heat exchanger (such as a sidearm) to heat their domestic hot water - that may be a good place to start reading. They're typically using a boiler, though, so there may be some differences in efficiency/etc.

I bet you'll use more wood than you currently do, because you're going to have to put the same amount of energy into the water, whether it is from the electric or wood.