Learned a lesson and got real lucky

[EricV]

I went down the cellar to look at the temp of my tank and it was spilling water out of the top, pretty good amount on the floor.

I figured out what happened and realized how lucky I got.

It's home made tank, 8' by 4' by 4' with a pond liner and 240' of 3/4 copper heat exchanger. I had set a 42 gallon vertical galvanized steel tank inside it to temper my DHW. Works like a charm.

But, the steel tank corroded somewhere and was leaking house pressure water into my tank and spilling over the top. Luckily I started a fire and went to look at the temp of the tank before my basement filled up.

So, no more galvanized tanks in my tank. I'm going to make up a copper heat exchanger from some 3/4 and 1/2 copper I have and let that sit at the top of the tank to temper for me.

I got lucky this time.

Eric

 

[WoodNotOil]

Glad to hear everything was alright in the end. Another chapter in the chronicles of DIY heating projects...

I have a 1/2" copper coil for DHW in my non-pressurized tank and it works really well. I simply got a 100' coil of soft copper from Lowes and made a cheap frame to suspend it in the tank out of CPVC. To encourage stratification in the tank and not deplete the temperature at the top of the tank too quickly, I ran my coil from the bottom to the top of the tank. I also added one loop that goes the whole length of the tank at the bottom and another at the top out of hard copper for a total of about 120' of 1/2" copper. Good luck making your new heat exchanger!