Heating Water with wood?

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T

TrustJesus

0
Jul 17, 2014
51
Northern Minnesota
Just curious if anyone has ever tried to heat their pool using a wood stove (or something similar)? Saw some youtube videos of people pumping their pool water through piping which ran through wood heat (fire, burn barrel, etc) and back into the pool. Sounded like a pretty easy way to heat it if you have the space, time, etc.

Any thoughts or ideas?
 
Check my pool pics album and the sub album.
http://s1094.photobucket.com/user/bcgeorge/library/pool pics?sort=3&page=1

I've made two different styles of heater, the first being a direct burn, and the second -- current one -- being rocket stove style.

Search my posts, I've given a description of the builds in other threads.

Heating with wood is only viable if you have a source of free or almost free wood. Otherwise it would actually be less expensive to use natural gas or propane.
 
Charlie_R said:
Check my pool pics album and the sub album.
http://s1094.photobucket.com/user/bcgeorge/library/pool pics?sort=3&page=1

I've made two different styles of heater, the first being a direct burn, and the second -- current one -- being rocket stove style.

Search my posts, I've given a description of the builds in other threads.

Heating with wood is only viable if you have a source of free or almost free wood. Otherwise it would actually be less expensive to use natural gas or propane.
Click to expand...

Tried doing some searching to read about your builds but wasn't able to find them. Do you know the exact posts?
 
Heating a pool with wood requires ridiculously huge amounts of wood and constant attention on the heater as more wood needs to be added frequently. It is completely impractical for anything but a stunt.
 
I have a small intex pool 16' by 48" deep and I checked into all methods of heating including wood and went with a Hayward natural gas heater. I bought on Craigslist and hooked up myself. If you are handy enough to create a wood stove heater than I would just go with gas, buy on craigslist and do the install. I actually have my gas heater right next to the house and ran PVC pipe to the pool. About 60 feet one way so I didnt have to bury the gas lines. i have ground cover plants that cover the PVC.

To me this is the only way to go, easy to switch on and off. I have 1.5 inch PVC running to the heater and it takes about 4 hours to raise the pool 10-15 degrees. That would be alot of wood.
 
I put in a cheap submersible pump ($16 at harbor freight). Connected about 50 foot of garden hose to the pump which connects to a zig-zag pattern I made out of of galvanized pip. This is in my fire pit. Then another garden hose connected to the galvanized pipe and back into the pool. Water coming out of pool is 68 deg. Water going back into the pool is 110+ deg (my pool thermometer topped off). I can't hold my hand in the return water for more than 5 seconds. I used scrap construction wood for right now (have plenty of access to that and lumber from our property). I plan to get 55 gallon drum and cut that and place zig-zag in there with wood. I will keep every one posted if it works for me or not.
 
A heater like that is not at all efficient. Counterintuitively, the lower the water temperature coming out of the heater, the more efficient the heater is. You want high flow rates and low temperature gain for efficient heating. Because of the low flow rate you will get very slow heating and won't be able to raise the water temperature in the pool by very much.

Also, galvanized pipe won't hold up to swimming pool water. For some while it will release iron into the pool water and eventually it will fail.
 
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