dhw coil in a pellet stove

[chrisf]

has anybody thought about it or has done it? I am thinking about putting in a hot water coil in my kozi ksh 120 when I put it in my basement. I just bought a 2 year old lopi and I am going to put it in my living room. and i am going to put the kozi in my basement to heat it on those real cold days. any pros or con or pics of an install or how well it worked. I was not looking to make all my dhw, I am looking at putting in a therm gaurd in and i figured instead of any oil it would have enough to heat the water to run though my baseboard to keep it from freezing.

Thanks
Chris

 

[summit]

i've got a customer who did this with a harman p38.. of course he was, and you should be, aware that this voids any warranty/liability claims you currently or will have... that being said, he says it works like a charm!

 

[chrisf]

I bought it on line new on ebay so I could not get any warrenty work done on it anyways. my Question is where do I place it in the stove. and do I set it up so I can remove it to clean the stove. In theroy it sounds like it is a sweet set up. I figured that the kozi is the easiest to do since it is all sheetmeatal and no cast.

 

[summit]

he set his up so it passed thru the right side firewall, looped around (u shape) and then back out the right side. the coil sat about 2" below the heat exchanger... we sell kozis, as well, and this should not be a difficult thing to do given the construction of the ksh120... previously, he had a vc vigilant that he had rigged with a coil as well, and i think he just recycled it into his pellet stove. another advantage, and you may consider this, is that the p38 he has is manual operation only... it does not shut down, so even on standby, it is warming water. You can run the cozy on an auto setting where it will perform in a similar manner. make sure it is a stainless coil, however, i do not know if a copper one would hold up in this scenario.. and keep in mind, again, it is not a process covered by any manufactures' specs!!

 

[summit]

another thing to consider, is that the p38 has no sheetmetal backings inside to remove to clean it, wheras the kozi does, so any placement would require planning to access the cleanout areas. try clipping in an appropriate sized piece of steel tubing with removable pipe clamps in various spots to see how easy it is to access before you make a permanent placement.

 

[chrisf]

here is what I am looking at but I think at where I work they can make it for me. but here is the link. I am going to make a dummy one and see how it fits. that is my biggest concern is how to get the plate out so I can clean the exchanger.
(broken link removed to http://www.hilkoil.com/product.htm)

 

[Wood Heat Stoves]

i dont know if such big coils will be heated enough in a pellet stove... the heat exchangers shown are for much larger apps.
using the stove heat exchanger as back up to a solar collector? in cold climates glycol should be used in solar system, right? what if the power fails, and your system freezes?

 

[chrisf]

I was thinking of using 1/2" stainless steel tubing. I am just looking to preheat my water in my boiler and what ever I could get in dhw for showers. Not expecting alot but even if it keeps the water in the boiler up to temp so when I put in a thermgaurd it will just have to circulate a small bit ofhot water since you can have it run for only a couple of minutes every hour.

 

[cncpro]

I was thinking of something like this but my plan was to try and capture the wasted heat going out the chimney.