Judith, she is kind of perplexed. Isn't it interesting how our memory works? Well, making a solar water heater is pretty easy but this place I was looking for had plans that showed you how to hook in to your water heater and recycling the water through the system. I will keep looking for the site but while I was looking, I did find two things of real noteworthiness. First is a video here showing a DIY recycling system that operates without any pump! It uses convection to raise the water up the tubes then gravity feeds it back into the water tank. The water tank when not being drained (when someone turns on the faucet) recycles back to the inlet to the solar water heater. The sun heats the inside box and black painted copper tubing, and then the heat causes the water to travel up. It's actually quite an ingenious idea that worked nonstop for 30 years until ... well... just watch the video :)
[Attachment(s) from JUDITH WILLIAMS included below]Thanks Perry. I would be interested to see what your Australian friend sent you.
I have attached a few pics of a modified rocket stove idea used to heat a hot tub in Taos. I am thinking of doing this but thought I would ask about the on demand heater first since I have one to install and thought I would take a short cut to heating the outdoor tub.
These pics show how Carole Crews used a kiva fireplace with the stove pipe running under a stock tank that has been sunken into a cob foundation to heat the water. It took about an hour to warm the water and it was nice to sit by the fire both before and after a soak. She told me she got the idea from a book by Becky Bee. I have the cob one so it must be another book she is talking about. One problem with her system was that the bottom of the tank got so hot it would be too hot to sit on. She put a piece of plywood in the bottom of the tank which helped a bit but I would rather find another solution.
You are right about having too many things on the stove. I have been trying to get my buildings, or at least one of them closed in and plastered before it gets too cold. But I have been fighting a flu bug this week and now the weather is bad. I'm sure there is still time but feel the pressure anyway.
Thanks again Perry. I would be great if you could share that info on the solar heater.
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http://www.amazon.com/Making-Papercrete-Judith-Williams/dp/B0040ZNE9A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1283998627&sr=8-1
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To: papercreters@yahoogroups.com
From: perryway@gmail.com
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2010 08:51:10 -0800
Subject: Re: [papercreters] On demand water heater
Judith, I have a friend from Australia that is excited about solar water. She says you can make a solar water heater easily and with easy to obtain materials. And that it can deliver water near to the boiling point even in the deep winter. I must confess with so many things to plan and prepare, I've pushed this topic to the back-burner. It may have even fallen off the stove a couple of times, only to be put back on by my friend. ;) Considering the effort she has gone through to educate me, I should go back and find those emails from her, and see if I can put together some information to get you started on the solar path.
As to on-demand water heaters, I'm sure there are good and bad units. Here where I work, the building owner installed them in the bathrooms but they hardly work at all. Because of that I would imagine someone would waste a huge amount of fuel to get a tub of water hot but maybe I'm wrong.There are some people on http://www.permies.com (Permaculture site, very very cool place, has forums and articles, videos etc.) who have built these cob houses using a "rocket stove". They have videos on how to construct one, showing how the pipes are laid out and all. They use this concept to put exhaust pipes inside a cob bench along the side of a wall that is used for sleeping on or sitting on. The heat from the rocket stove radiates inside the cob bench and warms that before it goes outside. It's very ingenious if you ask me. Anyway, I am thinking that the same kind of concept in a general fashion could be used to heat water as well, perhaps by coiling a copper pipe right up against the stove. Warm your buns with the exhaust and heat the water with the stove. Just an idea.
On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 8:31 AM, JUDITH WILLIAMS <williams_judith@hotmail.com> wrote:Has anyone used an on demand water heater to heat a hot tub? Would this be wildly impractical? I would love to have an outdoor water feature where I could soak but am not up to figuring out solar or anything like that.
The Making of Papercrete DVD now available on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Making-Papercrete-Judith-Williams/dp/B0040ZNE9A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1283998627&sr=8-1
Follow progress on the new project at http://www.papercretebyjudith.com/blog
More papercrete info at http://squidoo.com/papercretebyjudith
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