Williwaw, post: 420862, member: 7066 wrote: Presenting the Williwaw especial redneck wood fired hot water heater. One salvaged scrap 50 gal. gas fired hot water heater, after gutting the combustion chamber, married up with a slightly damaged wheel rim off of a bobcat that I had a local welder fabricate for me a little door for feeding the fire. Heats up the 500 gallons in the insulated cannery fish tote in 4-5 hours for one low budget but very satisfying hot tub. Now that I know it works I'll be building a cabinet for the heater and more permanent piping this summer hiding the hoses inside bamboo to gussy it up a bit. Compliments the sauna nicely I think. 😎
Willi, my brother, you are a true Okie at heart. With design-construction talents like that you could probably achieve public office down here...or at least preacher of a pretty good sized congregation...
ps - love the innovative use of pallets under the hot tub. We mainly use them to skirt our trailer houses.
Jim Frame, post: 420860, member: 10 wrote: One thing to keep in mind is that the demand systems require electric power to work. Be prepared to do without hot water for the duration of any power outages, or to run a backup electric system.
My brother has an on-demand propane system that runs off a 9 volt battery. The unit mounts on the wall. Easy retrofit if you already have a gas hot water heater.
Williwaw, post: 420862, member: 7066 wrote: Presenting the Williwaw especial redneck wood fired hot water heater. One salvaged scrap 50 gal. gas fired hot water heater, after gutting the combustion chamber, married up with a slightly damaged wheel rim off of a bobcat that I had a local welder fabricate for me a little door for feeding the fire. Heats up the 500 gallons in the insulated cannery fish tote in 4-5 hours for one low budget but very satisfying hot tub. Now that I know it works I'll be building a cabinet for the heater and more permanent piping this summer hiding the hoses inside bamboo to gussy it up a bit. Compliments the sauna nicely I think. 😎
My parents have been using their wood stove to heat their water for the last 35 years. Much cleaner than the contraption you have going on there....you might look into it. I think there is a pipe similar to one of these in the back of their wood stove..it goes from the wood stove to the hot water heater. 
When I renovated my house in New Orleans about 30 ago, I installed a tankless water heater. (Actually a licensed plumber installed it). I just bought it. I found a distributor in the area. The distributor also owned some car wash places. I believe the brand was Paloma and was made in Japan and popular in Europe more particularly in Italy. It heated by NG by a piezo ignition. Endless hot water.
Nice device. It was mounted on a wall in a back room. A lot of New Orleans houses have the water heater in a shed attached to the house and that takes up space and they don't have a long life span being outdoors here.
Also had a cabin that had a tankless electric, one could buy at the big box home supply places. It was made in China and was adequate but it did scaling problems with the well water. Needed to have a decent filtration system to prevent replacing.
WOW! Dude! That wasn't an explosion! That was a launch!
~
imaudigger, post: 420867, member: 7286 wrote: My brother has an on-demand propane system that runs off a 9 volt battery. The unit mounts on the wall. Easy retrofit if you already have a gas hot water heater.
My parents have been using their wood stove to heat their water for the last 35 years. Much cleaner than the contraption you have going on there....you might look into it. I think there is a pipe similar to one of these in the back of their wood stove..it goes from the wood stove to the hot water heater.
[SARCASM]They heat a hot tub with it? I'm impressed![/SARCASM]
I'm heating 500 gallons, not 5.
Circulation is continuous so never builds any significant pressure, but pressure relief valve is there for a reason.
Keep digging imaudigger, it's just a weekend project to see if it could be done. It will look quite a bit 'cleaner' when finished.
imaudigger, post: 420867, member: 7286 wrote: My brother has an on-demand propane system that runs off a 9 volt battery.
I stand corrected. When I looked into them a few years back, all the models I reviewed required AC power.
Williwaw, post: 420872, member: 7066 wrote: [SARCASM]They heat a hot tub with it? I'm impressed.[/SARCASM]
I'm heating 500 gallons, not 5.
Circulation is continuous so never builds any significant pressure, but pressure relief valve is there for a reason.
Keep digging imaudigger, it's just a weekend project to see if it could be done. It will look quite a bit 'cleaner' when finished.
I should have used sarcasm - just friendly ribbing. I have similar contraptions that I have built. Was thinking of making a cowboy hot tub out of a stock trough this summer. Cool off in the summer and warm up in the winter.
Will definitely end up using some sort of outdoor wood stove to heat it up in the winter.
The wood stove heats the water scalding hot continuously almost like an "on-demand" system does. kind of nice to never run out of hot water. It does have the potential to build up pressure. I think the hot water tank is above the stove. I think you could heat 500 gallons to a comfortable temp in a couple hours if you circulated it through the wood stove.
imaudigger, post: 420818, member: 7286 wrote: I believe that's an electric model (you can see the plug hanging down). When my grandparents bought their house in the early 50's they didn't have a fridge. They used their spring water to build a cold box covered in burlap. Evaporation kept it cool. Then came the little box fridge, then the huge Servel
Odd thing is, the old 1950's Servel gas fridges ran for years and years with no maintenance...Oh wait - I seem to remember there were a bunch of deaths associated with those old gas fridges.......
I believe you are right. I missed the cord this morning when I found that picture. The style of my grandparents fridge was similar to that though, and was gas powered as my memory tells me. They finally gave the fridge up due to a valve that went bad. Replacement parts had become hard to come by when it finally failed.
I am not a big fan of having gas in my house or even on the street I live on. Yes, gas is touted to be cheaper, but I have heard too many stories of things "going boom" with gas involved. Like furnaces. Heard of a furnace that took out a house because of some internal part that "should not have gone bad" (but did) according to the gas company. Stories of manhole covers flying into the air due to gas explosions. Stories like that make me nervous....
On the other hand, when an oil furnace leaks, the floor gets dirty. No resulting boom I've heard of.
imaudigger, post: 420875, member: 7286 wrote: Was thinking of making a cowboy hot tub out of a stock trough this summer. Cool off in the summer and warm up in the winter.
My coworker did exactly that. He heats it with an electric element.
paden cash, post: 420866, member: 20 wrote: Willi, my brother, you are a true Okie at heart. With design-construction talents like that you could probably achieve public office down here...or at least preacher of a pretty good sized congregation...
ps - love the innovative use of pallets under the hot tub. We mainly use them to skirt our trailer houses.
I don't know, I think that's really an Alaska style Redneck Whiskey still ;-).
paden cash, post: 420858, member: 20 wrote: We've got a bathroom that is soon to have a remodel and I've been looking at the "on demand" systems as a retrofit. I've been impressed with the numbers I've read from several consumer sites. I would also like to put one in the kitchen that is about a half-mile from the HWH. In the winter it can take four or five minutes for the water to get hot. I'm sure I've paid thousands of dollars in wasted water letting the tap run until it gets hot.
Paden~ I have probably the crappiest system in my glorified "mobilehome". I have lost thousands of gallons waiting for hot water to make it to the back bathroom or the kids bathroom. Found a great little circulating system that is easy to install. Just a valve under the farthest faucet from the heater. I had two because my water heater is in the middle. Put the recirculating pump on the hot water heater. It pumps the hot water through the temp control valve under the sink back to the water heater on the cold side. Shuts off when the temp at the valve get to a certain point. Here is the link https://www.lowes.com/pd/Watts-Water-Heater-Recirculating-Pump/1100949 .
Scotland, post: 420961, member: 559 wrote: Paden~ I have probably the crappiest system in my glorified "mobilehome". I have lost thousands of gallons waiting for hot water to make it to the back bathroom or the kids bathroom. Found a great little circulating system that is easy to install. Just a valve under the farthest faucet from the heater. I had two because my water heater is in the middle. Put the recirculating pump on the hot water heater. It pumps the hot water through the temp control valve under the sink back to the water heater on the cold side. Shuts off when the temp at the valve get to a certain point. Here is the link https://www.lowes.com/pd/Watts-Water-Heater-Recirculating-Pump/1100949 .
Thought about a few different scenarios I've entertained and recirculation is one of them. House was built in 1939 and so was the plumbing. Remodeled in 1955 and added on to in 1970 and the plumbing is a nightmare. Whatever I do will include some cleanup first.
paden cash, post: 421004, member: 20 wrote: Thought about a few different scenarios I've entertained and recirculation is one of them. House was built in 1939 and so was the plumbing. Remodeled in 1955 and added on to in 1970 and the plumbing is a nightmare. Whatever I do will include some cleanup first.
Isn't the key fact whether all of the water supply lines are copper or galvanized? If the later there is a life expectancy, if the former, maybe it's not the plumbing so much as it is other factors.
When I built my new home in 2007, I went with the tankless instant system. 10 years later is works like a charm.
Even in the far side of the house we have hot water in 5 seconds or so.
Randy
The trend here in Houston seems to be to tear down the old house and throw 6+ 3-story town homes on the lot.
Darryl Beard, post: 421948, member: 11556 wrote: The trend here in Houston seems to be to tear down the old house and throw 6+ 3-story town homes on the lot.
Yes, I was shocked to see a 50' x 100' lot in Houston resubdivided into THREE lots.
