Heat excahnger for wood fired boiler

[Dozer]

I am looking at building a wood fired boiler for my shop. Ive got most of it figured out but havent figured out what to use for the heat exchanger on the inside. The ones that you can but especially for that purpose are pretty spendy. Has anyone come up with something that is a little cheaper?

[sparcebag]

Boiler for in floor heat? Radiators?

Why a heatexchanger for the garage/shop?

[Dozer]

Maybe heatexchanger is the wrong term to use? Basicly it would serve the same purpose as a radiator. I dont have tubes in the floor or I would go with in-floor heat. I am looking for a way to get the heat from a boiler to the shop. They sell kits that are basicly a radiator with a fan blowing through it but they are pretty spendy.

[fastkaw]

Do you know anyone in the machine business?

The coolant coil/box with a fan works quite well. Check the machine auctions.

[Dozer]

Do you know anyone in the machine business?

The coolant coil/box with a fan works quite well. Check the machine auctions.

I guess I dont understand what a coolant coil/box is?

[sparcebag]

Fast you talkin about a A coil?

Dozer did you think about direct hot air? A fire box surounded by a 2nd box to capture heat,a blower inclosed in insulated pipe to shop?

Hot water takes forever to heat! Hot air is pretty much on demand once a fire is started.

With hot water you'd pretty much have to keep the fire stoked 24 hrs a day to avoid the time it takes to heat, circulate and warm a area.The more water the longer.

[Dozer]

Sparcebag, I basicly have what you suggested right now and it works pretty well. I am basicly looking geting it hooked up to the house as well. Not possible with the system I have now but if I had a boiler it could be done fairly easily. Other than the week and a half I was at Rainy lake and Mexico the system has been fired up since the end of November so Im not worried about heat up time. Maybe I will just leave well enough alone and refine the system I have now and call it good.

[sparcebag]

What ya got now in the house? Radient floor?Some kind of water heat?

Will you heat the shop continuously or when needed?

[Dozer]

I just have forced air in the house. They make a heatexchanger that goes in the ducting above your furnace in the house, the furnace fan blows air through it to heat the house. I keep the shop at around 50 all the time. The way it is set up right now my wood furnace has more than enough capacity to heat the shop, it burns about as low as I can get it most of the time. If I could get the house hooked up to it I could let it burn hotter and use the extra heat in the house

[fastkaw]

My mistake. I thought Dozer had a way to make heat, and needed a way

to distribute the air. (heat exchanger)

sparcbag

No not a A-coil as in a conventual R22/410 unit. If you can find a old water cooled

A-coil that would work.

Machine coolant cooler are flat coil, piped in 3/4in. pipe. Most are in a box with a fan and work well as a cheep way to get heat in a garage/shop type space.

Lots of time when they sell the old machinery they through away or scrap the

coolant coils. You can get them cheep.

[Dozer]

My mistake. I thought Dozer had a way to make heat, and needed a way

to distribute the air. (heat exchanger)

sparcbag

No not a A-coil as in a conventual R22/410 unit. If you can find a old water cooled

A-coil that would work.

Machine coolant cooler are flat coil, piped in 3/4in. pipe. Most are in a box with a fan and work well as a cheep way to get heat in a garage/shop type space.

Lots of time when they sell the old machinery they through away or scrap the

coolant coils. You can get them cheep.

Fastkaw this is exactly what I have. Well not yet, but I have the boiler part figured out but need a way to distrubute heat to the air. When you say "Machine coolant cooler" are you talking like a milling machine coolant cooler?

[fastkaw]

Fastkaw this is exactly what I have. Well not yet, but I have the boiler part figured out but need a way to distrubute heat to the air. When you say "Machine coolant cooler" are you talking like a milling machine coolant cooler?

Dozer:

Yes thats it. milling, CNC, most of the larger machines have a cooling coil

for the water/oil that is used to cool the parts.

They make great radiators. As I said lots of time they just scrap them out.

[fastkaw]

There is a million ways to make one. You could use a truck radiator as far as that

goes. Build a metal box with a blower on the back and the coil in the front. A little unorthodox, but it would work.

Im not trying to say thats how you should do it. It. a example.

Sorry this kind of stuff brings the hillbilly out in me. (grin)

ps I have used a coolant coil, and it worked quint well. $30 with fan.

Got it at a auction.

[Dozer]

Actually I went to school to be a tool maker, not in the field now but I know a ton of people that are. My father works at a mold shop in the cities, so maybe he can come up with one.

[sparcebag]

In that case how bout 100 ft of copper 1/4 inch tube coiled in a box with a fan.

With the water you'll need a mixer,regulater/flow control,2 pumps,low volt connections,under ground pex to reach destination and probably something I'm forgetting.

Seems like lots of cost & screwin around when you heat now with forced air,and can just go to hot air connection in the shop and house plenum with a thermostat controled fan.

[Dozer]

I should have mentioned the house is 75' from the shop. Pretty much impossible to get the heat to the house without a boiler.