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Wood-Fired Water Heater Project |
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Safety Considerations of Our Wood Fired Water Heater: When designed our stove we took into consideration several safety factors. The first of which was if we were going to use a blower, the blower needed to be off at all times when the door was open. The last thing that we wanted to happen was to have someone open the door while the blower was running, this would cause either ash or in the worst case actual flame to blow onto the user. So in the wiring of our stove we've incorporated a contact switch wired in series with the blower. Therefore the blower will not be able to run unless the door is closed. The second safety consideration that we've incorporated into our stove is actually on the hot water tank. We've put a temperature snap switch that is normally closed in series with the blower as well. This snap switch is set to a temperature of 150˚ F. This is to prevent the blower from running if the temperature in the tank gets about 150˚F and therefore not able to burn the user and not able to boil the water in the tank. Our thought process is that if the blower is no longer running the air to the fire is limited and thus the fire is reduced or put out.
Control Factors of Our Stove To get the most efficiency out of our wood fired water heater, which implemented a control valve. This control valve will allow use to set the water flow to a GPM value that will provide the best heat transfer as well as keeping the water in the coils from boiling. We've also made it possible for our entire heat exchanger system to be at atmospheric pressure. We've put an expansion tank in our designed that has been modified to be open to the atmosphere. With the expansion tank being modified it also ensures that all the air in our heat exchanger has been removed, by pumping the water in our drain at the lowest part of our plumbing system and allowing the air to bubble off at the highest point in the expansion tank. |
