water wood heater

[The Breeze]

anybody ever make a water wood heater ? got pic or prints ?

[migwelder05]

do you mean something like a boiler that uses wood?

[The Breeze]

water wood stove

yes this is what i speek of looking to build one would love so input on this any pics would be great thanks in advance.

[fun4now]

i been playing with the idea of building one also. been too busy in other things at the moment, but hope to have one in assembly/try-outs next summer.
sorry no plans as of yet , i'll let ya know if i come up with any.

[Jeepnford]

I haven't built one myself yet,I'm planning on it this summer. However,I did look at one a local guy built this last summer and he said it works very well. This is where he got his plans. http://www.deb-design.com/ If you get the opportunity to look at a few of them you might be able to build one of your own design. The guy that built one said he had about $3000.00 in it,that was including a machine shop shearing the plate into pieces.

[shortarc]

Don't know if this will help but I've made several of these for the Amish people to use to heat their greenhouses with.

This one isn't finished but it gives an idea maybe. The square pipe out the back is the smoke stack and on this one he is running it back through the water tank and it will come out the front above the door.

I have some pictures of a large one that is finished, if I can find them.

[fun4now]

my thought was to combine the stuff i have scrounged up to try to go low $$ build. i have some large 3/32" steel plates, an old heavy duty tank, an old (5years) but working gass hot water heater,an old cast irn tub, and some exhost pipe.

besides making a functional water heater i will have to get a pump system working to circulate the water. and most important is to find an afordable fule for it.
my first thought was cooking oil. but have decided i will most likely have to go with wood, old pallets to be exact. i have colected about 150 gal. of cooking oil but the colection process is slow and low volume with the available resorces in my area. the wood pallets i had in mind are 12 ft long with 3 4"X4" oak solid runers 12' long. good scorce but the company that i was getting them from moved, i have to track them down again and make shore they are still willing to give me the pallets.
just been too buisy trying to get ready for the new baby and the comming of winter, and....well you get the idea.

here are some pic's of the goodies i plan to use.

[The Breeze]

furnace

great pics thanks for all the help keep it coming.

[wrench3047]

my father put one together a pile of years back. He had bought the oven part from a vender at the state fair. I don"t remember the brand but it was doubled hulled with fire brick and copper tubing between them. The water was heated ran through the insulated lines to the house into an old truck radiator mounted in a doorway that we never used anyway. Installed a fan from the dryer on a grain elevator and temp controls from the hardware store. The system wasn't pretty by any means but when we had ample supply of cord wood it was much cheaper than the furnace in the basement. If you were in the living room after the first few minutes that thing kicked on you were ready to stand in a snow bank in your shorts. We did forget to feed the fire a couple nights before we went to bed and regretted it the next day cause it took till lunchtime before you couldn't see your breath inside. Ah I miss Minnesota.

[fun4now]

the radiators is about the same idea i was thinking about. except i was going to leave the house thermostat on and set for like 60 just encase i spaced out the fire feeding. i noticed when i was dieing a garth mall outfit the wife made for a friend, that it dose not take much to keep the 55 gal tank hot. but getting it hot to start with is no small thing. gotta feed the cr ap out of it to get it started, as you found out the hard way.

a few fun pic's for ya.

[The Breeze]

wood heater

ya i was thinking about a old propane tank as the fire box but you can't find steel laying around like you use to everybody is broke and selling it.

[spotsineyes]

Get ready for some explosions! How are you going to have a blazing-hot fire without turning the water to steam? If your house gets up to 100 degrees, you're going to have to do something. If you shut down the water flow with a big fire, boom goes the boiler! If you bypass the flow to the house and keep it circulating through the boiler, it will just take longer before it explodes.
The DEB design website says their plans use a thermostatically controlled water jacket temperature, and until you fully understand how they do this, you are taking you and your family lives into your own hands.
Boilers are dangerous however they are fueled. Natural gas-fired boilers have several safety controls to kill the fire in event the pressure gets too high, or the temperature gets too high, or if the water level gets too low, or if the water quits flowing.
What kind of safety control is there that can shut off a wood fire fast enough to prevent disaster?
I'm sure there is something because of all of the wood-fired boilers that have lately become available to the consumer, but until you are familiar with them, you are playing a risky game.
Just for example, did anybody see the episode of Mythbusters when they blew up a water heater? All they did was to plug the releif valve and jumper the thermostat. With the electric heaters that the factory put in the tank, the explosion was enough to cause the heater to go through the roof of the model house that they built, and way up into the sky.

[Jeepnford]

The household water furnaces are not pressurized. They have a vent tube out the top of the tank for relief. Most of them have a temp sensor on the side of tank and are used to control a draft blower for the fire.

[shortarc]

I'll give a little clarification on my post with the heater pictures.

When they install this type of heater for the greenhouse the discharge pipe comes out of the top of the heater and up to an open expansion chamber, such as an open ended 55 gal drum. this way there is no way any pressure can build up. No steam just hot water. It circulates on it's own, hot goes up cool comes down, no pumps involved.

I DON'T cut the propane tanks they have them cut were they buy them.

Merry Christmas to everyone.

[fun4now]

i had no intention of pressurizing it. not heating with steam, just hot water. worst case is it leaks water all over the house and the house heater kicks in to keep us warm. in the morning i just have a wet floor to deal with. no boom option.

shortarc
It circulates on it's own, hot goes up cool comes down, no pumps involved.


i was planing to use a pump for circulation, how did you make it un-needed ??
can you elaborate ?? would be nice to take the pump out of the system.