Hi fellow pyromaniacs!
The last upgrade to this stove is adding a hot water tank or boiler.
In my last video, we finished the secondary burners and left the stove venting the exhaust
towards the front and into the upper chamber.
For this addition, I’m adjusting the ceiling above the secondary burners so the exhaust
will vent through the rear, and then the water tank is added to the chamber, forcing the
hot exhaust along the tank’s bottom towards the front of the stove, then over the top
of the tank, resulting in as much surface area as possible to absorb heat.
This is just an experiment and I’m just using 1/8” steel.
It’s cheap and easy to weld.
I’m pumping the aquaponic water directly through this without using any heat exchangers
so the high oxygen level in the water will cause it to rust quickly.
If it works well, I’ll probably make a new one from stainless.
For a water tank, it’s important to provide a good clean surface to weld along.
The side walls of the tank are just 1” bar stock.
Inside the tank, I’m adding a couple of baffle walls so that the moving water will
circulate throughout the entire area, helping to minimize hot spots.
Once the baffles are installed, the top cover can be welded into place.
The water will enter and exit the tank through two 1/2" black-pipe fittings that are welded
on to the top of the tank.
I wasn’t sure how weldable the fittings would be, but they did surprisingly well.
Now that it’s all welded, it’s time to check the quality of my welding and see if
it leaks.
A quick connection to the air compressor and 15 pounds of pressure is enough.
The tank will have very little pressure while in use so 15 pounds is probably overkill.
You can see here that my top weld looks nice and clean,
and the bottom weld have a bit to be desired.
I guess I need a little more practice.
There were several leaks throughout the tank that needed to be patched.
When it was finally sealed up, the seams looked less than ideal, but it will get the job done
for a while.
To get the tank in, I have to remove the burners so we get to take a quick peek at their condition.
The sheet metal ceiling is still holding together and you can even see the marks where the gas
is igniting from the secondary burners.
The burners are in surprisingly good condition, considering the fact that they are usually
glowing red most of the time.
I believe that’s around 1200F.
It was a tight squeeze getting the tank through the door opening and there was barely a 1/4"
of space…a bit too close for comfort.
Once the tank was inside, it was able to temporarily rest on top of the fire bricks.
The inlet and outlet pipes are standard 1/2" black pipe with some adapters to get them
to fit on my existing 1/2" tubing.
The weight of the tank is supported on this side by the black pipe, and on the other side,
a single bolt through the side wall acts as a post for the tank to sit on.
You can also see the stick I used to temporarily prop the tank up into place while adding the
bolt.
I’m now a pro at getting the burners in and out so they easily fit into place and
I positioned the sheet metal ceiling on top of the burners so that the exhaust vents out
through the rear and into the upper chamber with the water tank.
The 1/2" tubing fits right on and it doesn’t take long to fire up the stove and have some
nice hot water coming out of it.
The fish really enjoy the hot water and are usually fighting for a prime spot.
One last addition was to add one of the red-neck heaters into the loop to try to capture a
little more heat.
It’s going in at 55 and exiting at 101 at 1 gallon per minute, or roughly 23,000 BTU’s/hour.
One thing that I noticed is that the exhaust temperature is substantially lower now, to
the point where I may start getting some creosote buildup.
I’m planning on one more update video, either this spring, or if I run out of wood, whichever
comes first.
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Thanks for watching!