# my water heater ver. 1



## wiggles_n_flop (Sep 24, 2012)

hey all home this is the right category to post under.
i just thought i'd share some of the projects i've been cobbling up in our new cabin. my wife really wanted hot water without having to heat it in a pot in the kitchen and since she'll be giving birth to our first child time now, i thought i'd indulge her and make a water jacket for the woods stove  

so looking at what materials i had to work wiht from our scrap pile i came up with a 32" piece of 6" well casing and the tank from an air compressor... the compressor tank was 3" longer than the well pipe but after getting a quote for new materials form the steel yard, i decided i'd rather work with what i had. so i cut several inches of length out of the tank and rewelded... then marked 6" circles in each end and torched them out and welded the well casing in place:









then, to regulate the heat/airflow in the chimney i cobbled up a damper which i placed in the top:









closed ^ ... open\/









i then welded on some short lenght of 8" pipe so that it would mate up to the rest of the chimney..... welded in some 1/2" fittings top and bottom and set it in place:










i raised it about 10" off the top of the woods stove 'cause my wife wanted to still utilize the surface for cooking/heating.
you can see my plumbing on the wall to the left. the water comes in at the bottom piped straight from the spring up the hill that i developed to gravity supply the cabin. 3 valves so that i can control what i fill and where i send it. also notice the T and clear plastic tubing fastened to the 2x4 up the wall. we marked out 1-gallon increments with a sharpie to tell at a glance how much water is in the heater.









there is supposed to to an additional tank off to the side as a reservoir to circulate the water through the water jacket... but i haven't gotten to that yet. we have been using this setup for a month now... taking baths and washing dishes and are quite happy with it; the jacket holds 9.5 gallons (which is why we decided that the reservoir could be put off for a while.)
with a good fire and the damper mostly closed to hold the heat in, it will heat 9 gallons to bath temp in 10-20 minutes and to boiling in 15-30 (depending on the fire, what wood, etc.)
we generally just put water in to heat when we need it and keep it empty the rest of the time or it would get too hot. once we add the reservoir to circulate the water and keep it cooler we can keep it full. for now the top fitting is left open to vent off steam.

anyway, not finished yet but it working great and we're quite happy wtih it. it has been a fun little project so i thought i'd share in case anyone else finds it useful.


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## biggkidd (Aug 16, 2012)

Good Job! Thanks for the pics. Glad to see you have it vented. Isn't it amazing what you can build with a little scrap.

Larry


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