Fire Place heat exchanger

steve z.

My friends dad had a grate made of steel pipe in his fireplace, but had it piped back thru a 120 buffer tank to take the excess pressure and temp off the system. He never left it alone and if the fire was too hot he has a valve that allowed the water to blow off to a drain and add cool water to temper it back....watch it closely or you will have a runaway train.....

David Fowler

Heat exchanger for fire place to supplement hydronic system

Gentlmen and Ladies,

I have a steam boiler system in "this old house" in Detroit, to which I added a radiant floor hydronic system via a heat exchanger in the "Butham" boiler. Sucessful beyond my expections. (The remodeled kitchen is heated by the radiant system only. The remainer of the house is still on the steam system). Now I want to go one step futher and that is, burn wood in the fire place while piping the hydronic system thru a heat exchanger grate in the fire place. I have been unable to find a grate (made of tubing) to accomplish this experiment. The tubing companies want much $$$ to even talk to me. Help, David.

Keith_24

Make the hearth grate out of steel pipe by bending it on an anvil. Make sure you control the loop so that the fire doesn't boil the water internally.

Keith

jp_2

fail safe

what are your plans to make it completely fail safe?

if the pump stops and the water boils then the pump starts again, what do you think will happen?

Weezbo

you should do some reading first, it will help you...

to consider some of the variables within your current planned strategy. Look into Gravity heating systems and then go back in time a ways and check on the gravity boilers and the engineer's who designed them....Good Luck and Safe hydronic-ing.

mtfallsmikey

Take a look

On woodheat.org...some pics of some of these failed science projects.

Bob Harper_2

mixed message

David, you speak of maximizing heating efficiency then you say you are going to burn an open hearth fireplace. That is an oxymoron. Regardless of heat exchangers, you are losing 400-600 cfm up the stack every minute. Air you already paid to heat. If you want supplemental heat in the fireplace room, install a gas, wood, or pellet insert and let the boilers heat the hot water. Don't you think enough people have been blown up over the years with DIY boilers and hydronics?

If this was such a bright idea, don't you think major mfrs. would have marketed a system that is tested, listed and meets ASME and whomever else regulates boilers in your area?

Think about it. Just friendly advice,
Bob

stevel

back boiler

What you are describing was common in england and is called a back boiler, it is placed in the back of the fireplace and
the hot water moves by gravity to a storage tank above the the
fireplace to remove the excess heat, and then is pumped form there.
they are still available as replacements.

Bob Gagnon plumbing and heating

I built one

a few years ago but if you take too much heat out of the fire you get a lot of cresote buldup on the heat exchanger and chimney. Someone told me the guy from this old house burnt his house down trying something like that, so I disconnected mine. The fireplace was sucking a lot of heat out of the house too. I put in a wood stove with a glass front, drawing outside air for combustion, installed radiant panels with aluminum plates in the walls and ceiling around the wood stove, and I circulate my radiant system without taking any heat from the boiler. The ceiling above the wood stove is 120 degrees and about 10 feet away it gets to 100 degrees, so the circulating radiant moves this heat from the warm part of the house to the cold part. It also stores it, because the heat from the wood stove is now moved to the floors, walls and ceilings in the cold part of the house, so the house is more even and I don't have to fire the stove as often because I'm not just heating the air. It acts like an external heat exchanger. Thanks, Bob Gagnon

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Bob Gagnon plumbing and heating

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

gordon_9

york gas furnace


Is there a problem with the heat exchanger in a york gas furnace ---i had one leak carbon monoxide after 8 years of little usage installed in 1999

Rich Kontny_3

The Two Bobs

Make great sense,the conventional fireplace is very inefficient by itself,add the cooling of circulated water to the equation and you set yourself up for creosote problems. Compound this by burning very dry wood to avoid creosote and you increase temps to the point of creating pressure issues in the closed loop heating system that have to be addressed.

My brother in law had a Tarm wood fired boiler put in a new house back in the late 80s he thought he could get away with a little less than seasoned wood (popple a hybid birch tree) The flames from his chimney fire were visible 6 ft. above his roof line. No damage to the house though because the chimney was well built (he is a mason!)

There are better ways to extract heat than fireplace hearths.


Rich K.

Couderay

Gordon

Better off starting new thread located at the top of the page