Wood Burning Water Heater??

[Plum]

how about a solar hotwater heater that way you dont have to deal with the wood. dont know how viable this suggestion is as i see your in canada.

does the system on the stove shut off automatically or is it manual, but i guess the biggest question about this system do you have enough wood available or can get enough for the whole year and future years?
i guess you could use it to offset costs when woods available buy shutting off the heater.

they sell super efficent stoves that barely pollute i think, i see them on the green channel, at first i was like how the hell can those be green

I have lots of wood (40 acres of bush) so that is not a concern, but in the summer, the solar option would make a lot of sense. I could probably get 3 months of warm enough weather...

thats probably just because they dont want to get sued, im sure it would work if you installed a chimeny to carry the smoke.

Yes - I will investigate this more throughly as it would be optimal.

Wrap copper tubing around the exhaust vent/flue for your wood burning furnace. No furnace is 100% efficient and you could capture some of the heat that is being lost.

Had not thought of this at all - VERY GOOD IDEA as you are correct, the exiting chimney/tubing does get very hot.

Or try the solar. I nknow there would even be enough sun up there to keep the temp up. My father built one for his indoor pool and hot water heater for showers. It is cheap to make and I am sure you could make it work with some form of thermostats and stuff...Sorry to hear about your bills ..My god I thought my $400 a month was expensive

Might be a good idea for the few summer months we get.

The problem with solar is that the water freezes in the tubing in Winter, especially in Canada!

Yes.... I would not get very many months of usage out of it... Remind me why I live in this cold climate?

 

[cvermeulen]

I did some investigation into solar thermal. I don't know where in Canada you are, but depending how much sunlight you get, it is quite possible to run a glycol to water solar thermal system that has a net benefit, even in winter. The trick is insulating your exchanger effectively against the cold air temperature while still allowing it to capture sunlight. Of course, snow buildup on your collector causes problems too, preventing sunlight from getting to the glycol... but again it depends where in Canada you are - If you're north of the 55th like I am, it's less than practical.

 

[MadRussian79]

Had not thought of this at all - VERY GOOD IDEA as you are correct, the exiting chimney/tubing does get very hot.

If you hook a thermostat to a pump rated for warmer water you solve your heating problem. Could you post some pic there might be other thermal bleeds you could fix.

 

[wow_it_esploded]

As for the pollution comment.... the tree grew for 20 years thus more than offsetting it's polution, and it is natural.

You fail to see the main issue here. Then the tree, which has been growing for 20 years, can no longer filter the air.

Natural gas might be cheaper than electricity, and it is one of the cleanest burning gases widely available.

 

[wow_it_esploded]

It wouldn't freeze as long as the water was always running through it.

 

[basslover34]

It wouldn't freeze as long as the water was always running through it.

spoken like someone whom has never spent any time in the Great Canadian north

Not only will it still freeze but it will actually cool down your tank instead of heat it. That tends to happen in -40 degree weather sometimes, the trick is actually to find a good method using glycol as was mentioned by cvermeulen or alternativily using Solar panels for electric heaters

 

[skynoch]

I've worked on the woodburning boilers and live in canada and we have no problem with them around here. You need to run glycol/water mixture in your line and then to a heat exchanger which is best located in a hot water tank or wherever you want to put it. To protect against freezing when not running either bury the line below the frost level or use a self limitting heat trace on the line and insulate it. They also make models where there is a natural gas backup for when you don't feed the fire.
There are also models of wood furnaces with natural gas backup that also cointain a single pass heat exchanger in them which would do the job.

 

[apisto]

why don't you just heat your tanks through your central heating? The plastic pipes for underfloor heating are ideal. All you need is a thermostat and solenoid valve

 

[wow_it_esploded]

I knew that it would cool it down, but I didn't know it would freeze... Gee... Me thinks this texan needs to get out more!

 

[xPe_MONeYx]

solar