Get Hot Water from Your Woodstove: The Blazing Showers Stovepipe Water Heater
This hot water heating system uses extra produces hot water that will stay warm up to 48 hours!
November/December 1976
By Sundance & Louie
Three years ago, we were sitting in our cabins wondering how we could satisfy our addictions for hot baths and showers, without paying ridiculous prices for disappearing reserves of fossil fuels. Putting our talents together (one of us is a mechanical wizard and the other a Ph.D. chemist), we devised a homestead alternate energy system — based on the use of otherwise-wasted stovepipe heat — that's allowed us to take those hot baths. We call our system the Blazing Showers Stovepipe Hot Water Heater.
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Hot Water Basics
As you can see in Fig. 1 (see Image Gallery), an ordinary water heater is nothing more than a storage tank (located between a house's water source and its various hot water faucets) sitting over a gas or electric burner. Since water tends to rise as it's heated, cold water is piped in at the bottom of the tank, while hot water is drawn off from the top.
Fig. 2 compares such a conventional water heater with a Blazing Showers system. As you can see, our setup employs a coil of copper tubing — located inside a woodburning stove's stovepipe — to heat the water that's held in our storage tank. Hot smoke rising through the stovepipe warms the water in the copper coil, which causes it to rise (and thereby draw more cold water into the coil). Meanwhile, the stovepipe-heated water flows into the top of the storage tank, where it remains until someone decides to take a "blazing shower" and turns on a faucet.
Notice that there are no pumps in our system: Instead, plain ole thermal convection does all the work.
Hot Water ... Overnight!
How long does it take to fill a tank with hot water this way? The answer depends on how cold the incoming cold water is, how many gallons your water heater holds, and how hot the flame is in your stove. We estimate that a blazing fire in an average-sized wood-burner can produce 20 gallons of hot water per hour. And—if you store that heated water in an insulated tank as we prescribe—it'll remain hot for up to 48 hours after the fire goes out. What this means in practical terms is that if you have a fire in your stove one evening, you'll still have all the hot water you want (for bathing, dishwashing, etc.) the following morning when you wake up. In fact, that water will actually remain warm for two full days ... even if you don't light the stove again at any time during that period.
First Things First: Hot Water Storage Tank
The first thing you need before you can install a system of your own, of course, is a storage tank. If you already have a hot water heater, you can use it ... otherwise, look around for a "previously owned" unit.
Many water heaters—you'll soon discover—are discarded solely because of a broken thermostat or heating element. Such retired fuel-eaters—as long as they don't leak and aren't badly rusted—are perfectly suited to our purpose. To find one of these storage containers, search around at the local dump, the power company, or in abandoned houses (make sure, though, that a house is truly abandoned before you go rummaging through it). Or—if you don't have the time to scrounge up a water tank—see your local plumber. Chances are, he handles quite a few broken water heaters and can get you a good one for $5.00 or a basket of snow peas.
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