in hot water

[ben1968]

Hi....cant seem to find anyone else that heats their tank using hot water....i have a 120 gal system that uses water from the thermal store to heat my water and works perfectly to keep water within 0.3 degc.The store is heated from a boilerstove burning old free pallets. Anyone else out there uses wood fired Discus?

[brewmaster15]

I used to heat my whole Fishroom with a Woodstove, always wanted to have a wood fired boiler for the water but never made the jump. Be great to see your system if you have pics you post.

thanks,
al

[ben1968]

Hi....hope i can do this with the pics too!...heres the tank:

This should be my discus....sorry for bad quality pics



This should be the heat exchanger/pump/solenoid that heats the tank. in the corner are the feed and exit from the thermal store on the floor above. the pump and solenoid valve are powered from the control panel in the scullery :



Here you can see 4 of temp controlers. Top two are inlet and outlet of fish tank, third down is water inlet temp to hex, and bottom is hex temp. When all 4 have made, water is pumped thru the hex, warming the tank inlet by 0.1-0.2 degc. When either the inlet water, or the store water gets to 37.0deg and 32.5 deg respectively, the system turnes off, and when the tank exit reaches 29.7, shutoff, tank inlet has a slightly higher slew of 29.6 to 29.9 to allow warmer inlet temps by 0.3 deg. in practice the system keeps the water at 29.6 to 29.7.

https://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/24.../834/wz43w.jpg

This is Bernie the boilerstove that heats the water that heats the store that heats the fish! you can see on the left corner of the mantlepiece the 2 off controllers for the boilerstove, left and right outlets. Either one comes on at 86deg and under that, all is done thermically. the 4 off pipes on the far left carry water to and from the store above. This is a dedicated feed 2/5 up the store. hex outlet is dissapated into the radiators (radiator took off!) Thermal store temp can be seen on display, along with time/grireetings/funny stuff etc. Fire cycles are guided by this temp as the fish tank heater stops cycling at 45deg and continues to ask for heat. has been working fine for 3 weeks now, and continue to refine and tidy up (mucky filter pic:



You can see the inlet from the doublewier outlet right side of tank....makes you want to have a pee all the time! Pump is in the scullery so is very quiet when doors closed.



Nearly forgot....heres tank! Orange on is fat Timmy, small one with inflatable bulb for radar is Captain Nemo, Two orange snakeskins are Freddy M and Felicity cuddlee Kendall!

[nc0gnet0]

This is a neat concept, I just wish I understood more of what you are saying........

[brewmaster15]

Ben,
Thanks for the pics, Can you tell me more about that boiler stove... Is there a water storage tank/boiler tank behind the wood stove in the wall?


Whats the manufacturer of that system. It looks like something i can use here.

-al

[nc0gnet0]

I want to know if the hot water from the boiler is just being added to the sump/tank, or if it is re-circulating through some type of submerged radiator.....

[ben1968]

Hi Guys....update yay! pump number 4 in new setup dry and installed. System working fine with circulator pump for fish pump up to 85 watts to cope with heat exchanger, so saving 270 watts of electric!

Mr Brewmaster....the system is my own design based on known systems of similar type. Mine has the thermal store in the first floor thinking above the far left corner in the fireplace picture. The store holds 300l of water fed from a stainless steel header tank in our bedroom on the third floor. All subsystems feed from this or to this....heating, fish feed, feed from gas boiler, and a coil in the top section that heats our water, providing mains pressure hot water. The 4 pipes you can see next to the fireplace are 2 feed and 2 return from the boilerstove. This doubling up allows for thermal syphoning to "pump" hot water into the store up till a temp of 86 degrees (we never really get it that high though) upon which the pump kicks in from one of the 2 controllers seen in the seed box on the mantlepiece (outlet right and left) then a "pulsing action starts as the pump cools the water down to below 86 deg. if the fire gets hot enough to sustain the pump, then it will go full on to 102 deg. I have never took it further lol! it serves all our needs including washing, which we use hot instead of cold water, saving electricity. all our fuel is recycled palletwood, so are carbon neutral too.he pum

Mr NCO.....as from above, the fish feed is a direct feed from store about 2/5 way up. The inlet temp to the fisheater is between 37 and 47deg most of the time. Next to the filter is a circulating pump, a solenoid valve, and a heat exchanger. The controller tell the pump when to work and the valve when to open, this heats the heat exchanger wheich in turn heats the fish water in the other circuit of the exchanger. it works very well, and im still experimenting with temperatures and pump speeds for general use and for water changes.

Hope that helps!

[ben1968]

Sorry, Al...if you have a good supply of cheap wood, then yes. Everything you can see is from ebay, B and Q

[ben1968]

wrong button! The boiler is and Cozyfire Emporer and is a 21kw unit. 17kw go to water and rest to room. Any details etc, just ask!