Permsteading.com

Glad to know that the video was helpful, Manny. I'm hoping to set up a system this spring that will allow me to cook at the campsite and produce hot water for doing the dishes afterwards with at least enough left over to clean my dirty feet, if not get a real bath/shower. Then it will be time to tinker up a system that heats some mass to warm our backsides during hunting trips.

A while back I was talking about posting a picture of my coil on the potbelly stove for water heating. I'm not sure if this picture thing works, but here goes:


There's a sensor for a Johnson Controls A419 attached to the hot-out (where the thermometer is) with a metal strap. Again, this system works- not great, but it works. I'm looking forward to getting a better system dialed in.

Manny, what length of copper tubing do you have coiled around your exhaust pipe? Even closely wrapped, there doesn't seem to be enough travel to let the water heat much before it is out of the system.

Lolly, I don't remember how much there is for sure. It's been several years since I put it together. I think it's either 30' or 50'. I've given thought to actually putting it in the firebox, but it works the way it is. I agree that the efficiency would improve greatly with a longer run, but as I've said before, it changes the way my stove burns so I've not been too crazy about lengthening it and increasing the wraps. It's just a back-up for solar heating, anyway. One thing I've learned about energy independence is that it all depends on how much you're using. There's a lot of free energy out there but we still have to conserve to make it enough. When the sun's not shining I use this stove heater as a back-up. It doesn't produce much but it's enough to keep the water tank hot and provide a short hot shower for my daughter and I and enough to do dishes once a day. That's about all I use hot water for.

I just found the "member steads" section of this site. How Awesome! I really enjoyed seeing your site and all you've got going on. It's really impressive! I'll have to get my little place up on there soon.

Have you guys seen this video: ?

That's a great heater that Geoff shares there. I think it's a very well executed system for warm climate water heating.

I don't know how he gets the copper pipe inside the tank. That seemed problematic to me. You could always cut the tank open and then try to get a water tight weld, but that isn't the easiest thing to do either. The rest of the system seemed to work well, I think I would also install a pop off valve in the water line to your shower just incase it also built up a head of steam. Just my thoughts.

Guy, I think the easy way is to just pass the copper coil through oversized holes above the water line at each end. No need for water tight penetrations, and you could have a large inspection opening cut into the "top" side of the barrel to help feed the coil, then use it for the fill later. That is hard to explain, but it's a fairly primitive, easy to build, system.

OK, the hot water tank that is used just has 2 large holes that the copper is inserted into it from the top and the water for the mass is just up to that level. That works. It doesn't have the nice water inlet and steam out flow pipes that he shows, but it works well in my mind at lest.

I've got the fire bug today. I couldn't find anything here through the search about boilers. Here is a furnace from an old Popular Mechanics. You will have to scroll down to see the diagram. It's almost a rocket stove heating hot water tanks.