Hot Water for the Homestead
(Page 3 of 5)
January/February 1974
James B. DeKorne
Not everyone is fortunate enough to live within 400 miles of the Mexican border, of course, so a water heater like ours may be difficult for some homesteaders to procure. Still, that doesn't mean you're doomed to the old tin tub.
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Many years ago (I'm not certain when they stopped being manufactured) laundry stoves were standard items in American homes, and some of these old-timers are still around. Such a gadget has a water jacket, which surrounds the firebox, and is fitted with a cold-water inlet at the bottom of the casing and a hot-water outlet at the top. It works very simply: As the water is heated inside the jacket, it moves upward by convection through the hot-water outlet to a holding tank (Fig. 4 and Dwg. 1). Cold liquid from the bottom of the tank then replaces the warmed contents of the jacket. This process continues until the whole tankful is hot.
We have one of these laundry stoves on our back porch, and use it for heating dishwater. It does take about an hour for the unit to do a thorough job on the contents of our 20-gallon holding tank, though. Obviously, the Mexican water heater is much more efficient and we plan to replace the laundry stove on our next trip south of the border.
Still, the old-time devices do work, and you can usually turn one up in secondhand and antique stores for about $40.00, just remember to look for the two pipes coming out the back of the stove, the detail which distinguishes the laundry heater from other small units of almost identical design. And examine your find carefully before you buy it, because such stoves may have cracks in their jackets (usually caused by leaving them exposed to freezing temperatures with water still inside). The breaks can sometimes be brazed shut (cast iron usually can't be welded) but it's still a risky proposition.
You can also construct your own wood-burning water heater quite easily by recycling a conventional gas-fired unit found in any city dump. As often as not, an old heater is thrown away because the gas burner is broken, not necessarily because the tank is defective. Once you've determined that the container doesn't leak, it's a simple matter to remove the gas-burning apparatus and weld a short extension on the bottom of the tank to provide a firebox (Fig. 3 and Dwg. 2). Some models even have enough space at the lower end to make such an addition unnecessary.
The original vent pipe (which runs up through the middle of a gas water heater's tank) serves admirably as a chimney. Add a few lengths of stovepipe at the top to provide a stack, and you have a very serviceable, low-cost, wood-fired water warmer of the same type as my Mexican import.
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