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To: PSYCHO-FREEP

We have toyed with the idea of heating our water in the winter months with our wood stove. I have to investigate that more. We have an old water heater sitting out in the barn that we can use.


53 posted on 02/08/2011 8:59:56 AM PST by MsLady (If you died tonight, where would you go? Salvation, don't leave earth without it!)
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To: MsLady

A couple of cautions about heating water and making steam. Heated water under pressure contains a huge amount of potential energy and can explode.

If you want to heat water, heat a coil, not a tank, it is much less likely that you will blow up the house or have live steam coming out of the shower head (bad on the complexion, posibly bone deep)

If you want to make steam to generate power, make sure you understand the safety requirements and do it in a shed away from the house.

If you are interested in turning wood into electricity, there are simpler ways to do it than making steam. Google wood or charcoal gasifier, you can run an internal combusion engine directly of of smoke or syngas from your wood. If you find the FEMA manual, there are photos of an old Ford tractor being run on wood chips and a gasifier.

I don’t want to be a downer but heating the hot tap on your own is a complicated and potentially dangerous affair. I agree with the other poster about looking into a wood fired outside boiler, the engineering is already done, all you have to do is come up with the wood and plumb it in.


73 posted on 02/08/2011 10:16:56 AM PST by dangerdoc (see post #6)
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