Wood burning hot water heater
- Thread starter booger
- Start date
CopperTopMom
Contributing Member
We have a range boiler
that's what they call them here. It's a hot water tank connected to a water jacket in the fire box of our wood stove in the kitchen. We find the recovery time VERY slow. Of course you also don't want to have to rely on it in the summer when it's hot out.
What we have done is plumb the range boiler so that we can run the water through it and then to the electric hot water tank this pre-heats the water in the winter when the stove is on and cuts down on the light bill. In the summer we bypass the range boiler entirely as the condesnation on the water jacket would rust it out in no time at all.
Our stove is an Elmira Stoveworks "Sweetheart". I'm not sure if they make them anymore but they're situated in the heart of Mennonite country in Ontario so I would suspect they still sell some of that kind of thing, although I can't find anything on their website.
Hope that helps a little.
that's what they call them here. It's a hot water tank connected to a water jacket in the fire box of our wood stove in the kitchen. We find the recovery time VERY slow. Of course you also don't want to have to rely on it in the summer when it's hot out.
What we have done is plumb the range boiler so that we can run the water through it and then to the electric hot water tank this pre-heats the water in the winter when the stove is on and cuts down on the light bill. In the summer we bypass the range boiler entirely as the condesnation on the water jacket would rust it out in no time at all.
Our stove is an Elmira Stoveworks "Sweetheart". I'm not sure if they make them anymore but they're situated in the heart of Mennonite country in Ontario so I would suspect they still sell some of that kind of thing, although I can't find anything on their website.
Hope that helps a little.
Thanks, CTM. 
I finally found a site that explains what I was thinking. Ack! My c&p won't work. I wonder why?? Let me see if I can type it out without too many mistakes.
http://ww2.green-trust.org:8383/2003/fireandwater.htm
We had planned on sticking with solar for summer as we do now but wanted to run it off of the wood-burning cookstove for the cooler months. That site explains it pretty well but does anyone have any personal experience with this set-up? Any things you'd do differently?
I finally found a site that explains what I was thinking. Ack! My c&p won't work. I wonder why?? Let me see if I can type it out without too many mistakes.http://ww2.green-trust.org:8383/2003/fireandwater.htm
We had planned on sticking with solar for summer as we do now but wanted to run it off of the wood-burning cookstove for the cooler months. That site explains it pretty well but does anyone have any personal experience with this set-up? Any things you'd do differently?
CopperTopMom
Contributing Member
The pre-heating thing he mentions with the tank in the basement (or in our case cellar) is what we have. We used to have them plumbed so that in the winter we used just the range boiler but found it to be just too slow for a family of 6. That's why we changed the way we have it done. I think in the winter the heating element on the electric tank hardly ever comes on. The tank by the stove heats by convection and then feeds into the electric tank through the cold water intake as we use water. The well pump moves things along just fine for that purpose.
We also have one of those tanks he mentions that are made for that purpose. If we don't use much hot water some days we have to watch the tank as it can and will boil. The comment he made about a tempering valve is very good. They are pricey but we would like to get one here at least for the bathroom pipes. If the range boiler gets hot enough you can get steam coming out of the tap, not a good situation if children are operating the taps. We have our kids pretty much trained to use only the cold tap, but as they get older that is changing.
Supplementing with solar in the summer sounds like a great idea. Something we would like to do if/when we ever get the funds. We have a pretty steady breeze here at all times so would also like to get a windmill in if possible......someday........
If you have any other questions I would be glad to try and answer them. The setup we have here is pretty common around here in older homes with a wood fired kitchen stove. Our neighbour used to have an even older stove with a resevoir on the other end of the stove from the firebox. They also had a rangeboiler/waterjacket and used it exclusively year round.
coppertopmom
We also have one of those tanks he mentions that are made for that purpose. If we don't use much hot water some days we have to watch the tank as it can and will boil. The comment he made about a tempering valve is very good. They are pricey but we would like to get one here at least for the bathroom pipes. If the range boiler gets hot enough you can get steam coming out of the tap, not a good situation if children are operating the taps. We have our kids pretty much trained to use only the cold tap, but as they get older that is changing.
Supplementing with solar in the summer sounds like a great idea. Something we would like to do if/when we ever get the funds. We have a pretty steady breeze here at all times so would also like to get a windmill in if possible......someday........
If you have any other questions I would be glad to try and answer them. The setup we have here is pretty common around here in older homes with a wood fired kitchen stove. Our neighbour used to have an even older stove with a resevoir on the other end of the stove from the firebox. They also had a rangeboiler/waterjacket and used it exclusively year round.
coppertopmom
