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Thread: RE: Outdoor wood boilers

  1. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by brdad View Post
    Properly plumbed, you can use any boiler to heat or help heat swimming pool water. In fact, it is not uncommon when you have a wood boiler that there is an excess amount of hot water which can be "dumped" into a large load such as a swimming pool, large radiators or storage tank in the basement, or driveway heaters.

    In most of these cases, you would want to use a heat exchanger, which isolates the boiler water from the dump load. There are wood fired boilers designed to directly heat pools without a heat exchanger, which probably work great for that purpose since they plumb directly into the circulator line with PVC, but they are not designed to heat your house as well.
    Hmm . . . another aspect that would be intriguing for me. We have a pool, but swimming can be limited in the Spring/Fall or even in the Summer after a few days of weather like we had last week and the temps just aren't quite warm enough to go swimming. If I could get a boiler plumbed for heat in the winter and possibly to heat up the pool just a tad in the shoulder swimming months. . . . intriguing . . . very intriguing.

    I'm also thinking that having any excess heat either dump into a heater in my garage (currently uninsulated though) or in a storage container in the crawl space (fully enclosed . . . just a bit tight on space unless you're four feet tall) might work out as well.

    I assume there must be a way to plumb such a system so that in the winter the wood fired boiler could heat the house and excess heat would dump into the aforementioned garage or a storage container in the crawl space and not dump into the pool . . . and then in the fall/spring the excess heat could be dumped into the pool rather than the garage/crawl space????
    "Courage is not the absence of fear, but the realization that there is something more important than fear."

    "Death is only one of many ways to die."

  2. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by firefighterjake View Post
    Hmm . . . another aspect that would be intriguing for me. We have a pool, but swimming can be limited in the Spring/Fall or even in the Summer after a few days of weather like we had last week and the temps just aren't quite warm enough to go swimming. If I could get a boiler plumbed for heat in the winter and possibly to heat up the pool just a tad in the shoulder swimming months. . . . intriguing . . . very intriguing.

    I'm also thinking that having any excess heat either dump into a heater in my garage (currently uninsulated though) or in a storage container in the crawl space (fully enclosed . . . just a bit tight on space unless you're four feet tall) might work out as well.

    I assume there must be a way to plumb such a system so that in the winter the wood fired boiler could heat the house and excess heat would dump into the aforementioned garage or a storage container in the crawl space and not dump into the pool . . . and then in the fall/spring the excess heat could be dumped into the pool rather than the garage/crawl space????
    Where there is a will, there is a way. just plumb in a loop off one of your circulators on the furnace with a valve that lets water go to the pool when "opened" or if "closed" goes to the zone it was originally intended to heat. (We had an inground pool, after several years of evaluating the cost we realized it would be cheaper to buy a small island in the Pacific than to keep the pool open therefore we had it filled in several years ago.) Before I filled it in I plumbed it in with PVC (I'm sure it wasn't "proper") and it worked well. We could get easily get the temp up to 90 degree as long as we kept the solar cover on it to help insulate. We swam in it all the way into September. Now we go swimming in February and January, usually in the Carribean..

    It can be and is often done!!
    There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.~~Albert Einstein
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  3. #43
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    Here is a pdf with a small bit of information on dump loads. Not sure why, but it seems a bit slow to navigate through for only a 2.5 MB file. But it might give you an idea.

    http://www.cmxshow.com/docs/CMX_CIPHEX-wood_solar.pdf

    And TRF is correct, a little valving, or an extra circulator and a switch, you can direct the heat in the direction you want.
    DNFTT! DNFTT! DNFTT!

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  4. #44
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    Quote Originally Posted by TRF View Post
    Now we go swimming in February and January, usually in the Carribean..
    How much PVC pipe do you need to plumb all the way to the Carribean!?!?

  5. #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sudonim View Post
    How much PVC pipe do you need to plumb all the way to the Carribean!?!?
    If I were a licensed plumber, probably not too much
    There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.~~Albert Einstein
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Many wise words are spoken in jest, but they don't compare with the number of stupid words spoken in earnest. - Sam Levenson (1911 - 1980)

  6. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sudonim View Post
    How much PVC pipe do you need to plumb all the way to the Carribean!?!?
    you can do it with a 20' piece as long as you have a good pipe stretcher, I know a guy that sells em cheap, he's also got some decent skyhooks too....
    Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.

  7. #47
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    Jun 2007
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    Firefighter, we completely enclosed our pool last year and besides keeping it absolutely clean with a lot less chemical use, my wife swam into the first week of November. I don't swim in water under 84 degrees though. Last year the water got up to 96 degrees. The downside for some people is that the interior air temperature gets to be 120 degrees in the sunshine. I like it, but most people don't. That's why I was asking about the wood boiler heating it. We could swim in April and November with a little wood. If you want to see a picture, email me at stepcars@exploremaine.com and after 20 hours of upload time, I can send it to you.

  8. #48

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hiram357 View Post
    you can do it with a 20' piece as long as you have a good pipe stretcher, I know a guy that sells em cheap, he's also got some decent skyhooks too....
    IS THAT A LEFTHANDED STRETCHER?

  9. #49
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    Quote Originally Posted by brdad View Post
    Here is a pdf with a small bit of information on dump loads. Not sure why, but it seems a bit slow to navigate through for only a 2.5 MB file. But it might give you an idea.

    http://www.cmxshow.com/docs/CMX_CIPHEX-wood_solar.pdf

    And TRF is correct, a little valving, or an extra circulator and a switch, you can direct the heat in the direction you want.
    Very interesting reading . . . thank you.
    "Courage is not the absence of fear, but the realization that there is something more important than fear."

    "Death is only one of many ways to die."

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