water storage

Water is the best heat storage medium we feasibly have. Water can be heated and stored and then the heat can be drawn off to heat the home in a manner more economical than just heating the home in a standard manner. Many people use wood to heat their homes because it is the most economical method they have. In most cases people who use wood heated water storage can heat their homes more economically than people who just use wood to heat their homes. Most outdoor wood boilers have built in water storage but generally speaking people who use water storage have much more water in storage than most OWB's come equipped with. A rough economical example is someone using water storage might get as much as 50% more heat from the same amount of wood that they would use to hat their home on a daily basis using a wood stove. That's a lot of wood by the end of the heating season. In the summer some people use stored hot water to heat their entire families weekly need for domestic use hot water with just one or two heatings of the water storage system and save a lot of money compared to their usage of standard fossil fuels like natural and propane gas and fuel oil. Once the system goes on line and the saving start coming in the deal is sweet.

Another way to think about storage is to think of it as a battery. You use a boiler to "charge" the tank of water, and then when the boiler is not running, you use the storage to still heat your house or domestic hot water. The larger the storage, the more you can "charge" the tank and run it longer without having the boiler running.

Smokinout,

most of us have the storage in our basements. There are 2 types of storage, pressurized and non-pressurized. Those with pressurized use some sort of steel tank, I have a 500 gal. used propane tank ($200), seems like most people go this route. The non-pressurized systems have some sort of tank that isn't sealed (looks like a small pool). Amount of storage varies with size of boiler, heat load and the amount of money you want to spend.

Search storage there are lots of links on this subject.

Buried tanks are difficult if not impossible to do any maintenance on. Some build sheds to house their tanks. Some farmers have old 500 gallon fuel tanks that have not been in use for years. One end can be cut off and the tank can be turned so that it/they are verticle, a liner put in and then used for an open system that has a lid. Insulation is very important. There is a quick search window at the top left cand corner of this page type in the key word for any search you want and you are likely to get a flood of configuration ideas.