rocket stove hot water

We use barrels of water left in the sun to shower with.  Makes for a real nice, comfortable shower.  But now, with the highs in the 70's and nights in the 40's it is unbearable and we are back to spit baths.
I've been thinking about using an old gas fired water heater set upon a rocket stove to heat our shower water.  As the tank in these heaters have the flue running through the middle, would it be possible to set a tank on the rocket stove and use the flue for the exhaust and get sufficient heated water after a time of burning the stove?  If you've tried this, how did it work?

you could also make a rocket mass heater, run piping though the thermal mass as its being fired and pump hot water through that way. seems you would get heat for your house and water that way if your set on the rocket stove.

awhitaker wrote:
I've been thinking about using an old gas fired water heater set upon a rocket stove to heat our shower water.  As the tank in these heaters have the flue running through the middle, would it be possible to set a tank on the rocket stove and use the flue for the exhaust and get sufficient heated water after a time of burning the stove?  If you've tried this, how did it work?

I haven't tried it, but it sounds like it would work great. It might be less work than building a rocket mass heater, too, for the amount of thermal mass you would be bringing into the home.

The original rocket stoves were low-mass cook stoves.  Many of these designs have built-in pots and pressure cookers.  You don't want to heat up a ton of other mass before the water gets hot.

I've seen plans for converting gas waterheaters to wood.  Probably in a Mother Earth News from the early years.  You would add a lot of efficiency by making the burn chamber bases on a rocket design.

that is basically what I had in mind.  A simple rocket stove but with an old gas water heater on the top/exhaust instead of a pot.  But this is for and outdoor shower.  I'm not about to try it in the house!  I'll use the tankless heater for that.

You guys might be interested in the rocket powered water heater we built. It's been keeping many Permaculture students in hot showers for several years now

http://milkwood.net/2009/07/12/the_rocket_powered_shower/

That looks really professional! 

I followed the link shown at the end of the video and found your page on stoves - here's the link in case anyone else is interested.  http://www.goodweld.co.uk/id20.html  

You make some *very* interesting stuff!!