Heat Exchanger Pump??

[jduke]

Wondering if anyone has ever put a pump on a water heater flat-plate or sidearm water to water heat exchanger. I was wanting to increase the water flow through the exchanger vs's it's natural flow. Hoping this would provide a quicker turn-over of the water heater to keep up with large demand if needed. My current set-up is an outdoor wood boiler feed two buildings each containing a water heater and furnace.. Thanks!!

 

[Duetech]

Welcome to the forum logburner,
My side arm is counter flow oriented which means the hottest part of the side arm is the last place the water I am trying to heat goes through and this orientation increases output. In my system the boiler side is always flowing and the water tank is natural or convection heat. I believe there is a problem with using a circulator to induce flow on the water tank side with pump pressure maximums because the pumps are not rated for that kind of pressure. My exposure is limited so obviously don't stop looking for a pump set up on my account. But to step up to the learning curve as I need and am willing to learn, I will risk asking that if you have a flat plate heat exchanger how do you get convection heat through such a short flow area? The reason sidearms work is they heat an area that generates enough thermal pressure to cause a siphoning flow. The flat plate would heat the water but not allow as much flow wouldn't it? The reason I did not use a flat plate was because I wanted to heat my dhw but still have the propane as a back up because I don't have thermal storage and there would be times that the boiler would not be running to supply the hot water for thermal exchange. The impression I had with the flat plate is you run them straight basically to heat dhw on demand with no tank needed. One of the sales points I liked with the flat plate was unlimited hot water with out having to heat and store water in a tank but the draw back was I did not have money for storage, at the time, and did not want to run my boiler 24-7.

 

[Duetech]

Hey logburner.
I didn't know they existed but go to this thread:EKO 40 Plumbing Diagram help requested and look up nofossil response he mentions a pump on the dhw side with a flat plate. Right up your alley?