Heating

[hunter63]

40lb tanks will last a long time.

About 8 days in a 1963 Shasta trailer, with an 8000BTU furnace, in 10 degree weather running all most all the time.

I do agree that propane would be the best option for long term storage....I have some old 20# tanks that are partially full/empty?...that are 20 years old, and still runs stuff just fine.

[Oddmott]

Was at a guy's hunt camp last weekend who had run a series of copper piping inside & outside his woodstove pipe to a 60gal hot water tank.

He fires every 4-6hrs, depending on temp, and his water is usually too hot to shower with. He has to draw a bath and let it cool. Apparently this is a fairly common set-up for off-gridders, but it was my first time seeing anything like it.

Kinda like what some folks do with their syrup evaporators to improve efficiency a bit.

[hunter63]

Was at a guy's hunt camp last weekend who had run a series of copper piping inside & outside his woodstove pipe to a 60gal hot water tank.

He fires every 4-6hrs, depending on temp, and his water is usually too hot to shower with. He has to draw a bath and let it cool. Apparently this is a fairly common set-up for off-gridders, but it was my first time seeing anything like it.

Kinda like what some folks do with their syrup evaporators to improve efficiency a bit.

One must be careful on system like this,....it needs to circulate, or a steam build up may cause a "unscheduled tank re-location ".......not good.

[woodsman86]

A neighbor when I was a kid ran his pool filter line thru a radiator in front of a torpedo heater. Same concept, made me think of that.

[hunter63]

All those home systems, kinda work.....and are interesting....gives you an idea how much people went thru, and the growing pains to get to the point where you can set your thermostat with your phone.

[Oddmott]

One must be careful on system like this,....it needs to circulate, or a steam build up may cause a "unscheduled tank re-location ".......not good.

Yeah his circulated. Something about larger piping here and smaller piping there that combined with the pressure of the heated water to produce a draw of some sort... i don't know. I was already 3 sheets to the wind on his homemade honeyed rye whiskey.

Oh, he had mentioned that his original tank was custom built to wrap around his stovepipe on the second floor, but everytime it drained too far and he forgot to fill it promptly, the steam pressure did build to dangerous levels.

[hunter63]

At "The Place" our original shower started in the shed.......3 gal bag hung up....kinda worked.
Purchased a Zolar propane heater with 6 v battery pump.......5 gal.....(Tried a Google, but insists on Solar?)....any way you circulated the water in the bax it came in, thru a coil heated with propane till it got warm.

At one point, had 100 ft of black hose on the roof of the shed. and again "kinda" worked.

Tried to add a 55 gal drum to the Zolar......[pump wouldn't fit, so switched to a 12 v sprayer pump.......that worked pretty well, but wasn't in the coils long enough to really give you hot water.

As I did have electric, added a 2-1/2 gal electric water heater, no mixing valve, thru a sprayer pump w/pressure switch, and a sprayer nozzle with a shut off that would shut down the pump.

This worked very well, and is still operational, using roof collected water.

So the system evolved over the years, and all versions "work" kinda.........LOL

I just find it interesting to see what people come up with.

[PopPop]

Propane. Get a big buddy heater and 20lb propane tanks, stay warm. Bigger tanks are are more cost effective. A wall mounted heater is more fuel efficient. I have an old mobile home hunting camp with a wall mounted 1800 btu propane heater. We use an electric fan for circulation. In sub freezing weather we can keep it toasty warm.

[NightShade]

One must be careful on system like this,....it needs to circulate, or a steam build up may cause a "unscheduled tank re-location ".......not good.

Absolutely!!!
This type of system can be extremely dangerous if not built properly.
Adding a temperature and pressure relief valve is a VERY good idea!! Otherwise, you're essentially building a bomb... It is literally only a matter of time before it blows up without proper expansion area and thermal relief.

[Wildthang]

Anybody ever heard of a compost heater? You basically take around 500 feet of copper tubing, and wind it around in circles as you put a 10' pile of manure over the coils. It doessn't make the water hot but even in the winter it will produce 80 degree water. Of course you only pump water through it when you need warm water.
And be sure and build it away from your bedroom window

[hunter63]

Here again I'm gonna refer to the Mother Earth News Magazine........They did several trials and articles back in the '70's and earth '80's
http://www.motherearthnews.com/renew...#axzz2jh930nQB

And yes it did work for a few months, and reached temps over 140 degrees, if I remember correctly, but had to ramp up, only maintained the temp for a couple of weeks, then ramped down again.

If a compost pile is done correctly it doesn't smell bad......

BTW they used plastic piping....the price of any size of copper these days, @500 ft if it stayed in the pile....(maybe stolen) is considerable.

[RALPER]

As a full time RV'er, I can tell you that solar on a RV will not run A/C or any heat producing appliance except for maybe a coffee maker if you turn it off after the coffee is made. It is all in the watts ( volts X amps ). For a decent system you need at least 400 watts of panels angled up to the south, 4 - 225 amp deep cycle 6 volt gulf cart type batteries ( must be in pairs to get 12 volts), a GOOD controller ( Morningstar), and large wires between them (#4 at least). Mine are #2 after I fixed it so it would work like it is supposed to. Go to this blog to learn: Handy Bob Solar. Rule of thumb: 1 battery for 100 watts of panels.

[Lamewolf]

Be very careful with kerosene heaters in a travel trailer - there was a couple of deer hunters that died from carbon monoxide poisoning around here a few years back using one in a travel trailer ! You might want to look into solar heating at least for the daytime - lots of info on the web for diy solar heating, plus its free once you get the equipment paid for. Solar electric is handy but electric hearters are power hungry, so if you go that route you better have a BIG bunch of batteries and a BIG inverter. Another route would be to have one of the outside wood fired furnaces that pipes hot water into a radiator for heat - no chance of carbon monoxide that way because the fire and smoke is all outside. Just make sure and put it on the downwind side so all the smoke blows away from you.