Re: Rocket Mass Incorporating Water Heating?
Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2013 3:29 am
Am I being completely stupid here, or are we over-engineering this? When I was kid we lived in an old Victorian house that had a coal fireplace in every room, including the bedrooms. In the kitchen we had a stove that sat back in a recess and to the left of the recess was a closet with the water tank in it. This supplied hot water to the kitchen sink, the washing machine and the outside privy. The electric hot water tank upstairs dealt with the bathroom supply, and the kitchen when we didn't have the stove burning.
Two pipes went from the stove to the tank. The pipe at the top (the hot pipe) had a pressure relief valve, like a big pressure cooker valve. The pipe at the bottom of the tank had a drain cock on it. I remember this because like most boys I used to play with the pressure valve and make it whistle, and I once got a whupping for opening the drain cock and letting the water out all over the kitchen floor. The tank was a tall cylinder type just like the electric tanks of today. The supply pipes just came out of the top of the tank. It was sat at the same level as the stove and pipes going into the stove were just normal black steel. It just relied on the siphon effect of the hot water to make it work.
All the time we had the stove burning, we had piping hot water. In the summer we used the electric immersion heater, apart from the time in the seventies when we had the power strikes and mother fired up the stove to heat the water in the middle of summer. That was a hot kitchen to skin rabbits in that year.
Two pipes went from the stove to the tank. The pipe at the top (the hot pipe) had a pressure relief valve, like a big pressure cooker valve. The pipe at the bottom of the tank had a drain cock on it. I remember this because like most boys I used to play with the pressure valve and make it whistle, and I once got a whupping for opening the drain cock and letting the water out all over the kitchen floor. The tank was a tall cylinder type just like the electric tanks of today. The supply pipes just came out of the top of the tank. It was sat at the same level as the stove and pipes going into the stove were just normal black steel. It just relied on the siphon effect of the hot water to make it work.
All the time we had the stove burning, we had piping hot water. In the summer we used the electric immersion heater, apart from the time in the seventies when we had the power strikes and mother fired up the stove to heat the water in the middle of summer. That was a hot kitchen to skin rabbits in that year.