work today...

[spaceace]

over the last couple weeks we have been working on an outdoor boiler heating system. this consists of an outdoor woodstove with copper tubing wrapped around it and a circulating pump inline with a radiator and fan to put out heat. we spent about 3 days coming up with a prototype that worked and held up to a pretty harsh test... 280°f and everything ran great. pump has an actual temp rating stamped on it of 230°f

that one is for the shop and it keeps things pretty toasty

today, we made another one that will be going in the basement for the guy i work for and here's the pics...

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[Ken_S]

What heats the water? Are there a top to the cylinder?
Ken

[spaceace]

i forgot about that part

the tank just gets a metal cover with rubber for a seal. nothing fancy as there is no pressure at all.

the heat comes from an outdoor woodstove that we also made.

BWT, all of the welding and cutting of the steel, i did all of it and my boss did most of the aluminum work

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the first heat exchanger hung in place and working

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[Ken_S]

Nice - i need one those. How big of an area does it keep warm? It looks like your shop it a good size. Did you make where you can control the temp or is it based on the damper from the stove.
Ken

[spaceace]

that shop is not very big. only about 12x20 with another garage attached to it exactly the same size. the heat it completely controlled by the dampers in the stove. i never took pics of building the stove but the stove is 3' deep and 16" round with a 60' roll of soft copper tube wrapped around it. it burns about 2-4 pieces of firewood a day. once you get the system heated up, it takes hardly no fire at all to keep it going as the glycol that is used in this system is for heating and actually is designed to retain heat.

[Ken_S]

That is the size of my lab. That is why i asked. Do know what it costs to build that set up.
Ken

[spaceace]

he has about $700 invested in this setup. the circulating pump, he got brand new for free and it costs about $100. the only things he didn't have to do this was the steel the woodstove is made from, the soft copper coils(2), the glycol, and a bunch of fittings and plumbing stuff. in all, it would cost about $1000-$1500 for exactly what we have

[Gnome!]

Looks very neat and a much cheaper alt to a reverse cycle air-con