Wood boiler to water heater info

[bob32racing]

Im looking to hook my heatmor 400dcss to my water heater. Ive been doing some research and with well water im advised to use a side arm kit. Well my brand new water heater doesnt have a top port and the relief valve is in the top where the vent should be. Also yes this is an electric water heater. I guess my question is why shouldnt i use a plate exchanger? The plate exchanger is the only way i can go now. Any input would be appreciated!

 

[cantoo]

Do some more googling. You can change your heater around to use the side arm, just means a little more work is all. Even with the plate exchanger you should have anti scald valve on it anyway.
Here's one way. There are some easy to understand pics out there. http://www.outdoor-wood-furnace-parts.com/Domestic-Hot-Water-Heaters-and-Kits.htm

 

[bob32racing]

Ive got a plate heater on my town house and it works great, on city water. Ive also read that if your hot water goes above your tank and down into your relief port its useless. As hot water wont go downward into the tank, it causes a thermal block.

 

[NSMaple1]

How big is your water heater?

You should be able to T into the drain valve on the bottom, and T into the relief fitting on top - keep the top T as close to the tank as possible, and the sidearm as close to the tank and as low as possible. That should work. (Minimize the amount of horizontal and downward flows as much as you can). A plate heater would usually need a second circ pump to get the DHW side adequately recirculating through it - they don't convect good at all, and on demand or off/on flow might not keep up.

No matter which way you go, put in lots of isolation valves & a couple boiler drains to allow easy flushing.

 

[blakey]

I ended up removing the anode rod on mine and plumbing into that port. I am on well water, it's been running 16yrs that way and the water heater was a couple years old at the time.

 

[muddstopper]

I built my own exchanger,
I believe I used 30ft of copper tubing and elbows and just hung it on the side of my wood stove. I added a extra elect heater that I didnt connect elec to just for hot water storage. I removed the popoff valve from the top and added a tee putting the popoff valve on one end of tee and connecting the top heat exchanger line in the other end. I removed the bottom drain valve and addef another tee and reinstalled drain valve and connected the bottom line off the heat exchanger. I plumbed the water inlet line from my supply line to storage tank and ran the outlet line to my other electric water heater. The hot water in the heat exchanger will naturally circulate thru the storage tank and whenever I am using hot water in the house the hot water from my storage tank will run to my electric water heater and mix with what water is in the electric tank. In effect, I am replacing my electric heated water with preheated water from my storage tank. I think it cost me about $60 to built and connect and paid for itself in the first month. In summer time when I dont have a fire in the stove, My water supply just passes thru the storage tank into my electric water heater, no valves of anything to attend to. Only problem I ever had was water getting to hot in the storage tank, it has gotten to 180*. Not a problem for scalding as it mixes with cooler water in the electric water heater before going to the sinks and shower. Usually only time it gets that hot is when I am not using a lot of hot water. When washing clothes and taking baths, cold outside water running in the storage tank will keep it down to safe levels. My BIL did something similar to his wood furnace. He just removed the metal side panel from the furnace and placed the heat exchanger inside and put the panel back on.