I am interested in finding out how many of you are interested in heating water with wood stoves. How about providing warm water for in-floor hydronic heating? Pool heating with wood? It is possible to transfer most (>75%) of the heat from stove and flue gases to water.
I'm interested, however I am not sure how it would actually work with the ups and downs of the stove.
loon ought to have some ideas for you pretty soon. He's hooking up his wood fired hot tub. http://firewoodhoardersclub.com/forums/threads/wood-fired-hot-tub.13948/
I've seriously considered adding a small addition on the side of the house just to house a wood fired water heater. It would have to be on the outside of the house if we wanted to heat the water year around. I know of one place that sells or used to sell wood fired water heaters and that is probably the way I'd go.
I seen one on that "other" site a couple years back that the guy had put a heat shield of sorts on the side(s?) of his stove and then put a coil of copper (coiled like the way soft copper comes in the box) in there. I don't remember if the water tank was above or below the stove, or if there was a circ pump or not...seems to me there was no pump...which means the tank would hafta be above the stove I believe. He claimed this setup worked well. Maybe I'll see if I can find that again
I was so interested in this several years ago I researched how to do it, and then the stoves that could be bought already set up to do it. I decided to go to a wood fired gasification boiler to heat my house, garage, and domestic hot water(DHW) all with wood! Haven't looked back. I miss my glass door view of the fire though. I still haven't set that back up yet. Soon though. Soon.
Ladies and Gentlemen, in the end it is about something that is safe, economical and works. Coils in the firebox are exposed to high temperatures. This means that high pressures can be developed inside coil if entire system is not designed and operated properly. Heat cannot be turned off in an instant. So how do you do it? Well, there are a couple of ways of doing it right: Collect hot air from around the wood stove and pass it through an efficient heat exchanger that that transfers heat to water. A blower moves the hot air. Air cannot get too hot, and the blower can be controlled by a temperature switch. Also, the system does not interfere with the combustion process. Heat-Booster is a very small company that has developed this system. We are a couple of beer-loving guys that decided to make a difference.
