Anybody tried a Hilkoil wood stove water heating loop?

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Wow. Earth bermed home or a cat stove?


TS

We heat with a Fisher MaMa Bear stove, main source of heat. We have a vent free gas heater for times when we are out of town for more then two days to keep the house warm and the pipes thawed.

The house is 1800 sq feet, has 6" walls, very well insulated, and newer vinyl windows. We live at the 5400 ft elevation in central Utah and have about 1 1/2' of snow on the ground as I am typing this. last Sunday it was -10 at sun up.

The gas water heater gets a work out due to the fact that I have three teenagers and adds to the heat, plus the gas range/stove is on, cooking food, for an hour or more every day. The gas bill is never more then $40 and is about the same every month of the year.

The fires are hot, mostly Silver Maple this year for firewood, and last for about three hours. The wall behind the stove is rock from floor to celling, good thermal mass and gives off heat for hours after the fire has died.

In the early winter and early spring we will go a day and a half between fires. Here it is Jan 9th and I have only burned about one cord of wood so far. Between two and three cords per winter is the norm.
 
YES I have used this. This is the same hot water coil that Harman stove sells for their stoves. Works VERY well. Thick too. I pump the hot water into my oil burner and the burner never turns on. I burn coal in my Harman so the water temp is pretty even.
 
re: Hilkoil

I have one in my Woodchuck Wood Furnace. My water tank is close enough for a thermosiphon. It works so well and so hot that I had to replumb the temp and pressure relief valve off to the side of the hot water entrance from the furnace and install a tempering valve. It's free hot water if the extra plumbing isn't too expensive and I am very pleased with it. I spoke with the manufacturer this fall and he was having trouble keeping up with orders in his one man shop in Schenectady. I'd do it again in a minute-just make sure you have a good pressure/temp relief and also an air purge valve in the top of the loop.
 
Hi. I'am thinking about these heating loops myself. I'am just in the getting started stage of adding on a garage & running pex water lines in concrete floor & wondering if it would work & how many loops in stove it would take. Would like to here how you trun out. Keep us posted. Jigger:
 
re: to much hot water

Well it's not that you have too much hot water, but that the water is too hot for safe domestic use. This is where a tempering valve comes in. Install the valve in the house hot water supply line and it tempers the hot water in the tank with cold to provide the temperature you want. I had 200 degree water at one point snd the adjustable valve works fine.
 
New Hilkoil Loop

I have recently installed Hilkoil's double loop in wood furnace but am some what needing advice on everything else.. I have read from there web-site FAQ's but better safe than sorry. I have two 50 gal electric water heaters in our new 5500 sq-ft home. Heater's are in basement spaced about 50 feet apart,no thermosyphen for me I'm using a circulating pump with aqua stat or dual controller?? I know how serious pressure reliefs valves are and no cutoff's in between. But I'm looking for any great advice and how two's....
 
Variable Speed Circulating Pump?

I thinking with a variable speed circulating pump attached to an aquastat that I can regulate temperature output. Increase speed of water through jacket to cool down and slow down speed to heat up. Is this correct?
 
This might be a better link

http://cgi.ebay.com/HOT-WATER-HEATE...ryZ41987QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I have thought about heating our water this way but the wood stove does not stay hot long enough to make it worth the effort. The house is so well built that one fire a day keeps it warm with two fires a day for a few weeks in Jan/Feb.
Checked this out on ebay, wonder if anybody here has tried this product:

http://myworld.ebay.com/thermo-bilt/

Looks interesting, might have to give it a go.



TS
 
I purchased two Hilkoil steel loops, one small, one long, i have a huge wood stove. i was sure to measure very accurately and have them end up being mounted up against the fire brick horizontally across the back of the stove and along the right side up-against the fire brick.. of course both pipes in series. i have an 80 gallon ceramic lined water tank mounted in the closet directly behind the wood stove. copper pipe connects the input and output of the heating coils. we have a LOT of power outages in our neighborhood so i wanted to be sure that convection would supply the needed movement of water up to the top of the tank... thus avoiding possible explosions if i was relying on an electric circulating pump. really wanted to be sure that i could continue to use my wood stove to heat the house in case of power outage without blowing up pipes and tank! it has worked wonderfully. we have two young children, diapers, a soaker tub and constant dishes and laundry. A tempering valve is an absolute necessity. often, in the 80 gallon tank of heated water there will be 160 degree f water at the top and 140 fr water at the bottom. well water comes in at 42 degrees in winter. the whole system is tempered to only release 124 degrees water to the electric hot water tank which clearly doesn't come on. Electric bills have dropped from $480 a month to $110 a month. our home is all electric. An interesting note: while a raging fire with great wood and walls of flame does output 140 degree water... so does a bed of coals with zero flame... especially if you push the coals up agains the hilkoils. so you can make hot water in the spring and fall if your good at keeping a coal bed going. i have 5 temp/pressure relief valves along the entire circuit out of paranoia... i have never blown a valve yet in 3 years of usage. only drawback, my current system can make it tough to heat the house itself if it's below 10 degrees f outside... i'm sure the water is pulling a good bit of heat out of the firebox! Some important points: to encourage natural and reliable convection... start fires slowly or you can boil water in the coils if convection hasn't started moving in time. i've only allowed 23.5 degree angles on all my copper fittings aside from the ones that connect the two hilkoils in series. i have my 80 gallon tank 4 feet above the installed coils.. i'm sure the higher the better. Use copper, install several pressures/temperature relief valves in the system, definitely an expansion tank, absolutely need a tempering valve, put several input and output temperature meters (analog) in key places such as input and output of the coils and top and bottom and output of the storage tank... this is the only way you can obsess over and learn how to create the most hot water in the safest manner
 
My folks heated hot water for ~30 years with a copper loop in a home built wood stove. Also heated the house.
Firebox was a 275 gallon fuel oil tank cut down a bit. (The oil school thick ones)

The loop just fed into the 50 gal electric water heater from the drain and where a T&P valve would normally go.

We were 5 growing up, I can't recall running out of hot water.
In the summer, just would turn the breaker on.

It would at times get hot, though it never popped open the T&P.

Was just a loop of soft copper (K?) right in the firebox, on one side.

It had nothing fancy like temp gauges, expansion tanks, temper valves, etc.
Just a T&P valve off the back of the stove for safety.
Not sure why a setup would need FIVE T&P valves?!?

I do recall the water being quite hot at times, but it wasn't like the second the tap was on, flesh melting water came out.

Wish I had photos, but it wasn't something I'd have guessed to be abnormal and worth using film on.
 
YES I have used this. This is the same hot water coil that Harman stove sells for their stoves. Works VERY well. Thick too. I pump the hot water into my oil burner and the burner never turns on. I burn coal in my Harman so the water temp is pretty even.
I realize this is an extremely dated post, but do you know where I can find information on who builds whatever is replacing the Hilkoil hot water heater coil since Thermo-bilt is now out of business?
 
I purchased two Hilkoil steel loops, one small, one long, i have a huge wood stove. i was sure to measure very accurately and have them end up being mounted up against the fire brick horizontally across the back of the stove and along the right side up-against the fire brick.. of course both pipes in series. i have an 80 gallon ceramic lined water tank mounted in the closet directly behind the wood stove. copper pipe connects the input and output of the heating coils. we have a LOT of power outages in our neighborhood so i wanted to be sure that convection would supply the needed movement of water up to the top of the tank... thus avoiding possible explosions if i was relying on an electric circulating pump. really wanted to be sure that i could continue to use my wood stove to heat the house in case of power outage without blowing up pipes and tank! it has worked wonderfully. we have two young children, diapers, a soaker tub and constant dishes and laundry. A tempering valve is an absolute necessity. often, in the 80 gallon tank of heated water there will be 160 degree f water at the top and 140 fr water at the bottom. well water comes in at 42 degrees in winter. the whole system is tempered to only release 124 degrees water to the electric hot water tank which clearly doesn't come on. Electric bills have dropped from $480 a month to $110 a month. our home is all electric. An interesting note: while a raging fire with great wood and walls of flame does output 140 degree water... so does a bed of coals with zero flame... especially if you push the coals up agains the hilkoils. so you can make hot water in the spring and fall if your good at keeping a coal bed going. i have 5 temp/pressure relief valves along the entire circuit out of paranoia... i have never blown a valve yet in 3 years of usage. only drawback, my current system can make it tough to heat the house itself if it's below 10 degrees f outside... i'm sure the water is pulling a good bit of heat out of the firebox! Some important points: to encourage natural and reliable convection... start fires slowly or you can boil water in the coils if convection hasn't started moving in time. i've only allowed 23.5 degree angles on all my copper fittings aside from the ones that connect the two hilkoils in series. i have my 80 gallon tank 4 feet above the installed coils.. i'm sure the higher the better. Use copper, install several pressures/temperature relief valves in the system, definitely an expansion tank, absolutely need a tempering valve, put several input and output temperature meters (analog) in key places such as input and output of the coils and top and bottom and output of the storage tank... this is the only way you can obsess over and learn how to create the most hot water in the safest manner
I realize this is a dated post, but do you know where I can find information on who builds whatever is replacing the Hilkoil hot water heater coil since Thermo-bilt is now out of business? Any help at all would be most appreciated!
 
The gentleman seems to be selling (or sold) the business. He posts on his website that no more products are available. Any idea where to find a similar product? Thank you for any help at all. Dan
 

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