Im currently playing with the idea of heating my water with my wood stove. My problem is I dont have endless supply of water. I rely on rain collection tanks and I gather water from a nearby stream for my fresh water supply, which is only a 50 gallon barrel. I recently came upon an old 180 gallon electric water heater I can use as a Hot Water storage tank. My rain collection tanks are capable of gravity feeding the Hot water tank located on the next floor directly above my wood stove. The collection water will go into the Hot Water tank and will then in turn gravity from the lowest drain to the lowest end of a copper coil wrapped around my flu. The water should heat up in the copper coil and thermosiphon back up to the tank. I would have to put a PT relief valve near the hot end of my copper coil along with a pressure gauge to monitor current pressures. I think I should put a back flow prevention valve or check valve on the cold water supply line between the tank and the coil. also I will require another PT relief valve at the highest point of the hot water supply line. It seems that would work fine until I run out of cold water to the supply the system with. At that point the water remaining in the system is going to continuously get hotter and hotter and gain more and more pressure til Hopefully the PT relief valves do their job then the relief valve will pop draining the remaining water out of my tank and leaving me and my wet system high and dry and in the danger zone. The only solution I can think of is to leave the tank unpressurized and use a small pump to transfer the water thru the lines. That destroys my goal to achieve free hot water production and my electrical capabilities are scarce due to my extremely rural location. Any Ideas on how I can maintain energy free transfer without blowing myself up in the process would be extremely appreciated. Thanks. JORD
