wood stove barrel

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Chrism

Chrism

Feeling the Heat
Oct 8, 2009
326
Eastern PA
Im converting a 55 gal drum over to a pool heater with 50 ft of copper tubing secured to the inside top of stove. Do I need to put a stove top thermometer and keep it at 500 to 600 degrees ? Or do i really even have to worry about it since its outside? There are air control vents on it btw. Thanks for input .
 
With any appliance that heats hot water, a big thing to worry about is a rupture of hot water hitting someone.

My co-worker grew up with a hot water coil in his parent's fireplace. One day it popped with the fire going and shot shot embers / steam all over the living room. He was "lucky" that they were home at the time and were able to quickly manage the situation, but still, all the furniture / carpet in the living room had to be replaced due to damage, yet fortunately, even though they were there, they themselves were not injured.

I can't give any recommendations to this setup other than creosote / chimney fires, if far enough away from any structure, are the least of your worries.

pen
 
A steam explosion outside can be as lethal as one inside. Be sure there are good temp/pressure reliefs at all critical points.
 
 
Have you done some calculations to determine how much copper tubing you need? It has been a while since I took thermodynamics. You will need to figure out if the water will move through the piping and not convert to steam and cause a large pressure difference. Basically, you have to make sure the hot steam pressure does not over come the resistance of the fluid flowing out of the pipe. There is a happy medium there and i would think less pipe would be safer. After all, even a short section of pipe will simply move water more quickly with less heat but at a greater flow rate. The overall heat exchange might be equal to that of a slower moving, long section of pipe at a higher exit temperature into the pool.
 
I think I would rather run solar water heater aka "poor man pool heater" I think it would be cheaper and safer to operate
 
Maybe the folks in the boiler room can give you more specific guidance?
 
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