Use your wood stove to provide hot water for cooking, cleaning, and other household uses. We’ll explore everything from a simple water jacket to more involved designs including flue coil capture and internal heat exchangers. Practicality, skill levels, costs, and safety will all be addressed.
VIDEO: Hot Water Harvest From Your Wood Stove with Richard Freudenberger
Use your wood stove to provide hot water for cooking, cleaning, and other household uses. We’ll explore everything from a simple water jacket to more involved designs including flue coil capture and internal heat exchangers. Practicality, skill levels, costs, and safety will all be addressed.
Great idea. Why can't this go mainstream? How much energy is wasted out the chimney? It would be awesome of there was some way to put something on the roof that safely captured the energy sent out the chimney.
Would like to see a workshop on wood heat for steam generated electricity.
I applaud the design with the heat exchanger on the outside of the stove body. This is the only good place to put the exchanger. The thermosyphon as illustrated shows the heat exchanger inside the connector pipe of the stove. The problem with this is that the flue gasses are being cooled. By cooling the flue gasses they are made closer to the condensation point for creosote; 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Even putting the exchanger on the outside of the pipe does this. When inside the stove body, the fire itself is being robbed of heat, lessening its combustion efficiency. In each of these adverse places one increases their risk of chimney fire and possibly the loss of property. By direct observation I have seen enormous deposits of creosote in chimneys serving this kind of heat extraction.
what do you think to this design ??? VERY CLEVER………https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAQ8hiAKLUE
Pardon me but it does not matter how high up or down low the tank is (essentially how tall the loop is) because if the whole loop is filled with water, about the same amount (volume/weight) of water is rising as there is water falling. As long as the pump is able to sustain the flow you need (against the resistance of the plumbing) you are fine. That is why a central heating system based on water and radiators uses a circulation pump which has hardly any head at all.
I tried a standard pump (which came of a heater unit which was installed on the second floor) and hooked it up to see what kind of head it could achieve…It was able to pump water from a bucket (pump was sitting about level with the bottom of the bucket) with a bottom outlet installed (so it needn't to suck up any water from the bucket) about 2-3 feet into another container…
Great clinic. I'm setting up a Thermosiphoning system but tank has to be 8' away from stove. Trying to find out if it will work. I can get the tank 5' off the floor, 9' ceiling.
A common mistake I see here and in most US systems is that the hot water from the stove is piped to the top of the tank. Thats very inefficient. the hot water should return back through the lower heating element hole, this way it does not have to be super hot to circulate. even on a low fire it will put warm water in the tank whereas in a low fire the hot pipe into top of tank won't circulate even if theres cold water in bottom of tank, if the top of tank is very hot from previuos high fire. Also you can use type M copper inside the wood stove, as long as water is in the system the solder CANNOT melt! I have 14 feet of copper INSIDE my wood stove, plumbed into a 120 gallon tank, situated 18' away from my wood stove (hot pipe runs across the bedroom ceiling ) and cold returns along the baseboard.
I have been thinking about this idea for some time for my garage as it has a diesel boiler system currently in it for in floor heat. I would use a well insulated storage tank for the glycol that is in the system but am undecided if i want to do an external or internal coil for the wood stove. What is the temperature differences you see on inlet – outlet lines on both systems on room temperature water? I would hate to go through all the effort of doing a coil inside the stove and find im overheating the glycol.
I built a DIY pellet burner with a external soldered copper heat exchanger to heat a Motorhome. It worked once then all my fluid leaked out. I wonder if steam burst a solder joint loose? It’s all hidden in a barrel with a heavy refractory cement lid but I’m going to take it apart and look. But I’m happy with how my first pellet burner performs.
This is a thorough coverage of water heating. Be safe. Thanks.
I enjoyed this video. Thank you very much.
Thanks for this video. Very helpful. I ended up making an exterior coil with a union on the upper and lower side in alignment with a drain and bleeder to hinge when need to move away from heat.
Wholly crap a pickup of wood for 75.00 that would just cover my gas and thats about it. I sell a cord delivered and stacked for 425.00
I just found this video–Dec, 2020 so I am a little late in commenting. First the video is very helpful, Thank You. My only wish is that the handout isn't available, nor a list of the components with brands and sources. When I realized this I just restarted the video and took notes. No big deal. Thanks again well done. My application is for heating antifreeze fluid in a closed system for my Hydronic in floor heating system.
Great video!!!
I want to buy the handout
Great video
Since you guys are engineer types, entertain an ideal using Stirling engine on wood stove for electricity and warm water. Stirling engine requires no dangerous steam and will run using a temperature differential between two piston chambers with air as the working gas.
The Stirling runs on air not steam, much safer. It is just not been engineered by mainstream because they decided to use steam engines back in the day because it was easier to get more HP in any climate, and therefore the Stirling never got developed. But there is potential with Stirling engines, especially now today. But like i said it needs to be engineered for the common manufacture but it never happened quite yet. But if you are the DIY type with lathe and mill, etc… you make one yourself, plans are everywhere.
In 1984 a Stirling engine set the world record for most efficient conversion of sun energy into usable electricity. And it still holds the record, and that says alot. But, that specific Stirling was made using intelligent engineers at Vanguard, its working gas is hydrogen or helium, one of those two. Can't remember, but it can be made using either, or it can be made just using air as the working gas. IT just makes it run better more efficient using a lighter gas inside the Stirling but you can just use air to make it easy for now. The machine has to be built to high tolerance and with superior materials in order to use a lighter than air gas inside, or else it will leak out.
But still even with just air as the working gas in the Stirling for your wood stove, with one cylinder in fire with the other cooled by cold water, will have that stirling pumping out some decent HP. And at the same time, you get warm water. Warm is the best efficiency between producing your electricity vs getting the heat into your water. If you try to get HOT water off the Stirling then it only means you are running the cooling cylinder on the Stirling hotter than it could be in order to be able to produce more electricity. But you can if hot water is what you need at the time, because that is the trade off, you can and should cool the cylinder anyway to get more HP(electricity), and since you cooled it you warmed the water you used to cool it, but that is the deal you don't want it boiling, for 2 reasons, first it is dangerous, second it decreases HP(electricity generation). It takes engineer type to be able to figure it out and have it safe and reliable.
NOTE: don't underestimate Stirling, you probably already seen them on videos, they are only toys, tiny little things. Size can be deceiving on video, they look bigger than they are, many of them fit in the palm of your hand. lol They are all over the internet and for sale, but those can't do enough to shake a stick at, they are for learning and for fun. For Example your modern furnace is bigger than your refrigerator, but a huge Stirling like that size taking advantage of you burning wood anyway, will help you with around 1kwatt of electricity, along with warm water, AND you heating the home anyway. You have to build it most likely if you want a big one. Big ones are out there but they built them for themselves, not for sale. Mainstream wants to act stupid like it did with electric cars, but Elon kicked them in the ass and showed them how it is done. So if you want a really good electric car that surpasses previous cars, go to Tesla motors. I am not changing the subject, i am showing you how mainstream don't like change, not the kind that disrupts the big wigs profits, and so even though the Stirling proved to be most efficient in 1984, almost 40 years later and still not available to consumers, can't buy it.
Cool idea
very good
So bad at explaining
I am hoping someone can advise. Would like to connect a wood burner to my existing diesel system. There was alot of info in this video but that was not something discussed. Unless I missed something. The systems shown here are all autonomous systems where wood heaters warm water into tanks.
But here is was I would really like to know. My diesel boiler (kabola) has an accumulation tank. I understand that there is a heat exchange coil in thd Kabola and one in the tank. I have a three way valve and a honeywell thermostat. The diesel cv has two funtions. Hot water and radiators. Radiators are warm inside the heat exchange coil. Hot water is heated outside the heat exchanger in the water in the tank, outside of the coil.
I want to know if its possible to pipe into that coil from a wood burner.
Maybe with a one direction valve to ensure water only goes through the coil and not into the kabola. That way i could leave my existing system and build on top.
But would this be at all possible or am i barking up the wrong tree?
Funny how older technology is coming back into fashion again. My grandparents heated a 3-bed cottage in the UK, with a solid fuel cooker/boiler, back in the 1950s.
Too much fluff…. you know.
All of this childish BS could have been condensed into max. 5 minutes.