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Help designing a heating system

C

Ckbrew

New member
I am trying to design a heating system to harvest heat from the side of a coal stove and pump it to the basement one floor down. My concept is to build a thermosiphon attached to the side of the stove. The temperature on the side of the stove runs between 200 to 425*F. The siphon would consist of 4-6 parallel vertical copper pipes set in aluminum radiant heat panels placed against the side of the stove with a manifold pipe at the bottom and top. This would run to a 30 gallon storage tank to collect the hot water. Then a separate loop to pump the hot water in the tank to some type of hot water to air heat exchanger. This will be an open system with no internal pressure.

Some questions/concerns I have are:
Not building a steam bomb
Is there a way to calculate the heat harvested vs heat used by the air handler?
In other words will I need to set up a control to turn on and off the pump based on the temperature of the water in the tank? How should this be done?
I have no idea what type of hot water circulator pump to use or what flow rate I should look for?
i have no idea what type of air handler I should use. I was thinking about a radiator or heater core with a variable speed fan. Maybe something pre-made.
I'm not sure what type of electrical controls I need/should use.
Can I plumb the transfer loop with 3/4 pipe or would I need to go with 1 inch?
There are probably some questions that need to be answered that I do not know to ask.

I realize the design info is a little vague, I am still in the early planning stage and anything can be changed as it all is still only on paper. Rather than trying to post the entire incomplete plan, if someone has questions about the proposed setup ask and I will answer. Any help I could get in designing this would be appreciated.
 
Welcome to the forum.
Do you have a traditional furnace with an air handler? My house has 4 levels and I run 1 or 2 woodstoves in my house depending on the outside temp. To get the house levels to an even (as much as possible) temperature, I turn on the fan on the furnace's air handler. It then circulates to all 4 levels. Most thermostats have a fan setting (auto, on & circulate). If you set it to circulate, it'll come on at the intervals and duration you specify. Something like "run 15 minutes every hour". Running this fan costs very little, something like 30-cents/day.

No special system as you're considering. It also works well to draw humidity out of your basement in the summer. A dehumidifier costs a lot more to run than the furnace fan.
 
#1, you need an expansion tank. Small one should do it.

Any real reason to calculate heat ?

I haven't seen the aluminum things for 1" or 3/4.

Any circulator. Probably a slow one or 3 speed like would be on a boiler.

You can use one or two of these:

to turn the circulator and fan on and off at temperatures you set.
 
bczoom said:
Welcome to the forum.
Do you have a traditional furnace with an air handler? My house has 4 levels and I run 1 or 2 woodstoves in my house depending on the outside temp. To get the house levels to an even (as much as possible) temperature, I turn on the fan on the furnace's air handler. It then circulates to all 4 levels. Most thermostats have a fan setting (auto, on & circulate). If you set it to circulate, it'll come on at the intervals and duration you specify. Something like "run 15 minutes every hour". Running this fan costs very little, something like 30-cents/day.

No special system as you're considering. It also works well to draw humidity out of your basement in the summer. A dehumidifier costs a lot more to run than the furnace fan.
Click to expand...
I don't have a traditional system or air handler. Just the coal stove for the main house, and a wood stove for the basement. Passive solar also. There is extra heating capacity available in the coal stove, I'm trying to use the heat I have to heat the basement and avoid the wood stove.
 
pixie said:
#1, you need an expansion tank. Small one should do it.

Any real reason to calculate heat ?

I haven't seen the aluminum things for 1" or 3/4.

Any circulator. Probably a slow one or 3 speed like would be on a boiler.

You can use one or two of these:

to turn the circulator and fan on and off at temperatures you set.
Click to expand...
I don't think I need an expansion tank as the system would be open to the atmosphere and extra room for expansion in the open storage tank. With this setup there would be no internal pressure in the system. Am I way off base with this conclusion? The only reason I wanted to calculate the heat is I don't know the rate the thermosiphon will make hot water vs the rate the air handler will use the hot water. The aluminum radiant plates would use 1/2 inch copper pipes attached to a larger diameter manifold at the top and bottom. That controller looks like it might work, Ty.
 
You're right about the tank if it's open. Going to act as a humidifier, too.

I used heat transfer tape to attach the controller's sensor to a pipe on my Modine.

You can tell whether your air system is outpacing the thermosiphon by whether the tank water/air output is warm/hot.
 
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