Hi,
My Quad 4300 is located in the middle of our open floor plan 1950's cape on the first floor. It has plenty of heating potential and I have even set up a duct system in the ceiling near the stove to get heat into one of the upstairs bedrooms with an in-line duct fan and thermostat (works perfectly). Of course, I am not too good at sitting still so now I want to pre heat (just a little bit) my domestic hot water before it enters my electric hot water heater. The hot water heater is in the basement, almost directly below my stove (about 12 feet away).
My idea is to take about 50' of 1/2" copper and mount it on the brick behind my stove. There is about 2" of the clearance between the back of the stove and the brick and the air temp back there is about 120F most of the time. The water would travel through the 50' copper coil and then enter the hot water heater. I am well aware of danger of steam but there is an expansion tank downline and the temp behind the stove is not that hot. My concern is: will I cut down on the rate of flow significantly? Also, would I be better off mounting an old cast iron radiator behind the stove and using that instead of copper? My guess is that an old radiator will never offer clean water no matter how long I flush it out.
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
My Quad 4300 is located in the middle of our open floor plan 1950's cape on the first floor. It has plenty of heating potential and I have even set up a duct system in the ceiling near the stove to get heat into one of the upstairs bedrooms with an in-line duct fan and thermostat (works perfectly). Of course, I am not too good at sitting still so now I want to pre heat (just a little bit) my domestic hot water before it enters my electric hot water heater. The hot water heater is in the basement, almost directly below my stove (about 12 feet away).
My idea is to take about 50' of 1/2" copper and mount it on the brick behind my stove. There is about 2" of the clearance between the back of the stove and the brick and the air temp back there is about 120F most of the time. The water would travel through the 50' copper coil and then enter the hot water heater. I am well aware of danger of steam but there is an expansion tank downline and the temp behind the stove is not that hot. My concern is: will I cut down on the rate of flow significantly? Also, would I be better off mounting an old cast iron radiator behind the stove and using that instead of copper? My guess is that an old radiator will never offer clean water no matter how long I flush it out.
Any advice is greatly appreciated.