Wood Burning Pool Heater - How Well Does it Work?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ส.ค. 2024
- Watch this video to learn more about the efficiency of a simple wood burning pool heater. I have had quite a few requests to provide some more detailed information on how well the wood burner works and so I decided to get some numbers together here.
I have been very happy with how well this pool heater has worked for me this year. We have had such a cold summer here in Michigan this year and this heater has been one of the only reasons we have been able to enjoy the pool. Normally the solar heater and solar cover can keep the pool comfortable but this year it has just not bee adequate. I have run the wood burning heater only when needed, maybe once or twice per week at the most. We have been able to easily keep the pool temperature above 75 so far this year.
The numbers and methods here are just for rough estimation of how well the heater works, this is not meant for the science books but should hold true with a heater of similar size and efficiency.
I measured about 69 gallons per hour with a 33 degree average warm up to the water. This was with an average sized fire going as the temperature here will fluctuate as you add wood and let it burn through. I have seen it as high as 45 degree and as low as 15 so it just depends on how much and of what you are burning.
Calculations I used - 15000 gallon pool divided by 69 gallons per hour(filled one gallon in 52 seconds) gave me 217 hours to heat all of the water 33 degrees. Or if you reduce that it comes down to 217/8 hours to heat the pool 33/8 degrees - about 27 hours for 4 degree rise for the entire pool. You can also just divide 33/217 to get a coefficient that can be used to create a formula. Y= .15x where y is the degrees you will heat 15000 gallons of water and x is the number or hours you run the heater. So if we plug in 24 hours for x we get y=3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
Hopefully that makes sense to be used as a ROUGH estimate for calculating how much you can heat a similar sized pool. Thanks for watching!
Growing up in the UK, our pool was always too cold. We had an incinerator that was basically an old oil drum though... When my parents went away I put a hosepipe to one of the pump outlets and ran it through an old radiator on top of the burner. I used guttering back to the pool. Luckily they were away cos that was the best house party ever and the pool was toasty 😁
I'm not actually looking to build one of these, but as a writer, I am looking for the heating efficiency of the ancient wood-fired Roman baths (similar in construction to a Korean ondol, aka underfloor heating), and you've answered some of my curiosity quite well, thank you!
Lenny F, I am not able to respond to your question but it is a good one so I want to post the info here. Yes, in my calculation I am not including all kinds of other factors such as the amount of heat loss during the night. That will vary from pool to pool, in-ground or above-ground, etc. The point was to mainly give a numerical quantity for the amount of heat you can add to the pool in a certain period of time. Mileage may vary:)
Great job on the wood burning pool heater. By stating that it will increases the water temp 8° in 24 hours, I think you're missing an important factor. If the overnight air temp averages 60° or 30° I think there will be a huge difference in the result. Do you agree?
Very cool video. I like that you put some actual data in here. I am building a 30 gallon firebox barrel inside the 55 gallon barrel. Going to wrap 50 foot of 3/4 around the 30, then insulate the 2.5 inch gap between the barrels with oil dry. I am getting tired of Michigan summer starting July 29th...
If I can get my 74 degree pool above 80 I will be happy! I too was concerned about the copper turning the pool green, but that must not be an issue it seems.
Cameron Lange That sounds like an excellent idea! The copper piping is not an issue at all with the pool water and I have been running for two years now. good luck with your build!
Well it's been six years now did it work? Your idra does sound good
It's been cold here in NH this summer too! Looking forward to trying this project. Cheers!
so. according to my calculations. the stove is producing 4.87kW to heat the water. Thats pretty good :) Incoming water temp 26,6C outgoing 45C. Litre/minute= 3,79. 3,79l/m*4,19kJ*(45-26,6)*60/3600=4,87kW
@@josephwhite7952 you have the calculation in my reply... you should be able to figure it out. or just do some googling... i do not remember the formula now, i did google it...
Would you mind trying adjusting your water flow to a 10-15 degree delta T instead of 30-32? I'm pretty sure you would get much better efficiency and see you pool heat up faster.
Excellent video, very helpful information provided. Thank you very much.
Crank up the flow rate! Se what you get at 5 gallons per minute. I made a pool heater that just sits on topnmy fire pit. Im getting 10-12 degree increase at just over 5 gpm. Heated 5000 gallon pool from 72 degrees to 80 in less than 3 hours.
great video very helpful thank you i got a wood stove to heat pool and was thinking of using cast iron house radiators to run the water through either inside or outside the stove or both ! also maybe car radiators ones without plastic think that would work any concerns of a house rad in the firebox is is a large double door stove
Very well explained. I'm getting ready to do some kind of heater, so i'm looking for ideas. Thank you for sharing, i'm in central Iowa
other than money is there any reason not to use a large woodstove as your heater? I'm thinking a lot better efficiency than the barrel? Thoughts?
Excellent video! Thanks.
If you run the hot water directly back into the skimmer line instead of into the pool it will not be trying to heat cold water it will be heating warm water which will get dispersed into the pool threw the return line this will give you a more efficient burn
Thanks for the video! I can do this! Praise Jesus!
I am getting ready to heat my pool with an outdoor wood boiler doing some research their recommendations are to run 180 degree water to exchanger designed for a pool at up to 20 gal/min, that will increase a large pool 2 degrees per hr. heat exchangers to transfer that kind of heat cost $700-1500. So your Way is absolutely cheaper. How does it work when the air temperature is in the 70s early in the year?
I was just thinking that if you put the stove on its end or upright position then you could have lots more coiled piping. The top part of the stove you could take off for easy access to coiled piping and down below would be the door so to feed the fire. The top of the stove you could weld or latch back on for easy access if needed. Thoughts??
I copied your design and am achieving about the same exact results. However it takes a high flame to reach the coil in the top. After giving it some thought I think it may be more efficient to wrap the coils OUTSIDE of the barrel and then wrap the barrel with fiberglass insulation. Seems like there is a lot of energy being wasted as infrared heat escaping unused.
That is a good idea and one I have thought of recently also. I am thinking about wrapping the barrel with a coil to preheat the water before it goes into the main coil. This would also be a solution to the safety concern of the hot barrel as well. Good luck and keep me posted!
did you do this?
Excellent explanation. My above ground "plunge pool" is a little under 2000 gallons. 7x10ft by about 4ft deep. Do you think i could rig this up to gain a couple months on either side of summer to have comfortable water temps??! I'm in north Carolina. Id LOVE to be able to have a couple more months of 85+ water. would this be a possibility for me??
You've inspired me! In the process of doing this myself. Live in Northern Ohio and have a ton of dead Ash trees. I used 60" coil of 1/2" schedule L pipe in mine. Copied your diverter, but the hot side.....got a little too hot and started to sag and leak on me. I used 1/2" solid PVC back to the 1 1/2". I see you used some sort of flexible tubing for supply and return to the barrell....what exactly is it? I'm currently sending the 1/2" hot side directly to the pool until the fire goes out and can make repairs and modifications.
1/2" irrigation tubing with foam insulation.
What is the formula for figuring out how much temperature rise will take place? I'm having a tough time finding it. My numbers are
Pool size 27,000 gallons
Pool temp 77 degrees f
Water out heater 130 degrees f
Pump rate 90 gallons per hour
Or 1.5 gallons per min
This video is great. Thank you so much for taking the time to put it together.
+Adam Verrett (TrollFromTheBYU) i used my findings and math is in the description. Hope that helps!
+SSLFamilyDad thanks I didn't see that.
have you thought of maybe getting the heaters in series instead of parallel. solar heater to wood stove just to see what difference it would make.
Parallel is more efficient. Trying to heat water that is already hot is much less effective.
I love that you put a bible verse at the end. So welcoming. We are living in a time where most bible mention and religion is shunned. God bless you sir!
God isn't real
@@jaredshelton4718 you'll find out. Every knee shall bow every mouth shall confess everybody will be judged get saved before you die and go to a fiery hell
I don’t believe In witchcraft and fantasy stories as I am an adult now
I can picture my kids falling onto/bumping into/ the burning barrel and winding up with some serious burns. My kids are drawn to that kind of stuff. haha!
FiremanOly lol, that was a big concern of mine as well. I have this on the far corner of my yard and only run it when the kids are not playing in the yard. If I get a chance this year I want to put a small fence around it. Thanks for checking it out!
good protzekt. some thoughts for future.wrap as much coil as u can round the barel and the funel for preheating. insulate barel and pipes.use safety presure releif valve. Before building it Insulate pool walls and botom and locate it under the sunniest place in the yard.
Great advice Sapios! I share some of your ideas and am thinking about wrapping the outside of the barrel with copper tubing next season. Thanks for watching!
Hi SSLFamilyDad. I'm contemplating on building one of these. However, I'm realy concerned with using copper to run saltwater through it (salt chlorine generator pool). Is your pool salted ? Do you see any issues with corrosion of the copper and hence contaminating the water ? Much appreciated !
+cfen matisse we had chlorine and no issues, not sure about salt but I suppose as a test throw a piece of copper in a bucket of your pool water for a week or two and see what happens
Next project... zip line into your pool ?😉
The problem with your configuration is the heat is there but you don't collect it.
Your tube is to small,you need to pass ALL the debt of your pump in the stove.
If the température of the in and the out have a big difference in faraneight it just mean that you don't go enought fast with your water to collect all the calories the stove can give.
Much people think it's a good idea to crank a valve to let the température increase instead of a full debit......it is not!
You don't want some hot water to wash your hand and waste it in a drain.....the water is in circuit and recoming again and again.
So the faster you go the more efficient you are.
Take it to another point of view.......the much you can colder the stove the much you heat the pool.
You might consider wrapping the stove in about 4 inches of mineral wool and then aluminum roof flashing to cut your wood usage down and keep your daughter from being burned on the outside of the stove when playing in the yard.
I built something similar and tried wrapping copper pipe around the outside but wasn't getting enough heat transfer to justify the wood consumption. Also, I would expect you to start having trouble with dissimilar metal corrosion between the copper of your pipes and the metal of your pump. That combined with nucleate bubbling inside the pipe may give you pinhole leaks fairly quickly. I'm actually commenting so I can check back later and see how long it goes before that happens. So, please comment if it does.
If you're going to heat your garage in the winter with this you'll need to blow the lines out every time you're done or build a dedicated system and fill it with antifreeze.
Just saying because I'm building something similar to heat my house, garage and hot tub in the winter in Wyoming and I don't want to have to use any more electricity than absolutely necessary when it's 30 below outside with a 20 mph wind.
Best wishes.
Sam Kalkin Thanks Sam, I have been running this for about a year for the garage (just a few times) and used it a lot last summer for the pool. I have not had any issues and would not expect any yet. I figure I should get a few years at least out of the copper coil before it starts to break down but I will surely post a comment if it all falls apart:) Yes, I will surely clean out the piping before I switch it over to my pool. Thanks for checking it out!
Great video thanks.
Hopefully you read these... I was curious if you could list how you made the diverter system. I'm looking to do just the solar system and have been trying to figure out what specific pvc pipes and couplings you used to create that system with the irrigation tubing. Thanks for any info you could provide.
Best thing I can say is to watch the solar heater and wood burning pool heater videos to see how it is set up. I don't really have a parts list and don't live there anymore. Good luck!
How many feet of pipe is in the pool heater is it copper pipe
I think the best would be to replace the sand a the bottom with 2 inch stirofoam, and then insulated the side. I'm been thinking on that project. my idea was instead of one 20 to 30 feet copper in 1/2 inch. I would make a 2 inch manifold splitting into 10 1/4 inch 12 foot lenght copper pipe. it would make a better water flow and heat up the pool way faster.
+spaceplaneticket That is a great idea, I had thought about doing several smaller coils inside instead of one larger one. I might try that on a future build
Forgive me if I missed you mentioning it, but have you noticed anything to indicate that warmer water heats up faster, or to a higher temp running through the heater? "Common Sense" tells me that 60 degree water will heat slower than 70 degree water (for example) but I can't help but think that cooler water would see a faster temperature increase because of the difference in temperature (water and fire box). So what say you? Easier to heat once you get the water temp going up?
LordRuckus I would have to do some tests to give you a concrete answer on that but scientific thinking leads me to believe that we are adding the same amount of heat energy into the water no mater how hot or cold the water is coming in. However it might absorb more heat if the difference in pool water temp and fire are greater. Good question and I might do some experiments to test this theory. Thanks for checking it out!
Did the pool water ever react chemically with the copper?
+Tread Ster nope, not in three seasons
@@SSLFamilyDad how can you tell? Does this not form CuCl2? And is that not very toxic? Im not sure if this reaction occurs at this temperature between liquid chlorine and solid copper, it is made commercially with chlorine gas and 400 C copper. Anything above 5ppm is considered unsafe in drinking water so probably worth researching properly
Nate 97 my pool uses copper ionizing rod as the algaecide and chlorine shock. Guessing it doesn’t hurt much at all. Could always use a sacrificial anode if worried.
If you have a solar heater already and solaar cover what's wrong
I like your heater idea. I am thinking about a campfire version (might as well make Smores). I have a small 10,000 gallon salt pool with solar heat only. I am considering about a separate booster system, 100 ft stainless (316 grade) 1/2 inch OD Coil in the fire pit. All power with a 14 gal/min submersible pump. What do you think?
George Currlin I think that with a 100ft coil and a good fire you could heat up that pool 10 degrees in a day. One thing I have found is to insulate the tubing going from the pump to the coil as much as you can. I was surprised at how much heat loss you get there. Great idea, let me know how it works! facebook.com/simplesuburbanliving
Great instructional video. I wish I could heat the river with that!! Would you recommend both the solar heater and the wood burner for smaller pools or one over the other?
Well, the solar heater is great for maintaining the temps throughout the week and it is easy, wood burner is the easiest way to add some quick heat to the pool, for a smaller pool I would start with the solar heater and a good solar cover, thanks for watching!! I will have to get up to visit soon and build you one!
This is just a theory mind you, but I'm thinking that if you stuck the vacuum hose onto the skimmer (sans vacuum head), and were drawing the cold water from the bottom of the pool, you'd avoid getting a thermal layer (warm at the surface, cold on the bottom).
I made a stove like yours only put 60 ft of copper rather than 30 ft and when i started it i had a lot of condisation on the copper. it still works good when the door is open and when i shut the door it cools down. did you have any problems like that and do you have any ideas. thanks John
john darby If you are running water through the heater fairly quickly it may get some condensation which is not an issue. You can slow the water flow down and it will condensate less. As far as it cooling down it sounds like you may not have a good draft. How much smoke stack do you have on the barrel stove? I would recommend at least 6 feet to get a decent draft. Also make sure you have the bottom port on the barrel open and the lovers on the front door for air flow.
SSLFamilyDad thanks for getting back with me i ran a slower sub pump and even cut that down a bit so the water is running much slower and it seams to be working ok so far. we'll see how it does through the night. my stack is about 4ft and i have the damper wide open. thanks again John
Can you give diagram or plan of how to build the heater.... how to run the water in and out specifically??
I have videos on all steps
Are you guys still swimming this year? How late in the year do you think you could go? I too have an above ground pool the size of yours and would love to swim year round in Iowa!
Great question ntyler1970. We are not swimming here in Michigan anymore this season. Once the temps start dropping into the 30s and 40s at night there is no amount of wood you can burn to keep it at a good temp. There is just too much heat loss. If it were a below ground pool it would be better but still a lot of heat loss over night. Thanks for watching!
SSLFamilyDad Same here but was thinking about insulating around the pool with some type of flexible insulation (like a giant hot water heater blanket) and using a cover with insulating properties. Maybe I'm dreaming but wouldn't it be awesome to swim in a warm pool while the snow falls down?!?!? We were contemplating a full sized outdoor wood furnace to pull double duty as a backup for our infloor heat and hot water.
ntyler1970 It is not out of the question that is for sure, if you insulated well, and had a good cover on the pool you could keep it warm for sure. It might require a bit of wood but it could be done. Even better, you could make a kind of hoop greenhouse over it with some greenhouse plastic and pvc pipe. That would trap more heat also. Good luck and let me know how things work out!
I have made something like this last year the only thing I am have trouble with is build up on my copper from burning and now it isn't as good with heat transfer. Have you had this problem and if so how do you clean the crust off of your copper from creosote?
+shane howard i have another video on this on my channel if you are interested. I added an outside loop around the barrel and i am planning to take the coil out and clean it this year
+shane howard i have another video on this on my channel if you are interested. I added an outside loop around the barrel and i am planning to take the coil out and clean it this year
Thinking about building one .. I have heard that running chlorinated water through copper will turn the pool water green ? Any issues ?? Thanks ! Great vid !!
Other than the normal algae that will get the pool if you not clean it regularly I have not had any issues with the pool water being green. Crystal clear in fact. I do find that algae will grow quicker the hotter the pool gets however. Thanks for watching!!
use stainless steel
he there,
I'm wondering how many meters of copperwire your using. The amount of copper wire which is actually inside the woodburner. I'm making a hottub which is slighty smaller but, here's what i've used for calculations. 1 kubic meter of water requires 1,5 meter of copper wire to heat up 1 degree per hour.
Because 3,6 degrees in 24 hours should kill your wood supply lol.
Your calculations seems pretty good there but there are a lot of variables to consider. I am using 30 feet (10m) of 1/2 inch copper pipe. I have a pool that is 15000 gallons (57m^3). It takes a while to heat that much water but for your smaller hot tub it would heat it up pretty quick! I will be adding another 30 ft of copper tubing to mine before next season. Thanks for watching!!
that's right! i'm using 1/2 inch copper pipe too. The only difference is that i'm getting 4-6 degrees an hour, as i have the whole tub well isolated toO!
What size pipe do you use? Others used 3/4", but know one sells it anymore.
I love your channel and all of your builds. I am building this project now. 1 question....how would you join a second coil of copper to your existing? I don't think solder will hold up and I am not sure about compression. I am also in MI. What city are you in? Thanks for your videos. They are great!
Garry Carlson No problem Garry, thanks for checking out the videos. I am 30 minutes south of flint near Fenton. I am planning to add a second coil this summer and what I think will work the best is t just extend the copper coil tubing out the back of the barrel just the same as the first and then solder the loops together outside of the back of the barrel. You definitely do not want to have solder joints inside the fire, I don't thing that will hold up.
That is funny. We might be neighbors. I am in fenton, off Owen rd. I am surprised I didn't run across your channel when I built my Aquaponics system. I think I may go with a 60' roll. Vic Bonds has it. It is expensive, but hopefully it will be effective. I have a 30' pool (approx. 20-23,000 gal). I also purchased some High heat tubing (rated to 212 degrees). I got a barrel stove off Craigslist last week and spent some time at Home Depot yesterday collecting fittings and such. Any other advice you can offer before I get started? Thanks again.
Garry Carlson We are pretty close, I am off of Seymor in Argentine township. 60' should work awesome, might want to spread the coil out over the top of the stove as much as possible to get more surface area of the pipe in the flames. That should heat up your pool pretty well I would say. I am going to get mine fired up next week as soon as we are out of this cold spell. I'll look for the smoke from your fire next time I am on the way to Home Depot:)
SSLFamilyDad I hope to have have it all up and running by Thursday. This weather is a little crazy. Just got the winter cover off and the solar cover on. Maybe a little prematurely....LOL.
SSLFamilyDad I additional question.... I keep wondering about pressure and steam build up in the copper coil. Do you think it would be beneficial to add a pressure relief valve like on a water heater?
Why is the main line open to both sides
It’s the valve at the top
Hi I read chlorine n copper mixing will turn pool green ??? Have you had any problems ?
I am going to build a wood burner like yours, but I just wasn't sure what type of piping i should use inside of my 55 gal drum. Would you make any changes to yours now having used it after one season?
How about flexible aluminum conduit?
I have not had any issues with the pool water turning green other than when I don't clean it:) I don't think that the chlorine in the water is having any effect on the copper and if it does I can't tell at all. The only difference I would make would be to add a second coil of copper to try and get more heat from the fire into the water. More copper piping = more heat. Good luck with your build, let me know how it goes on www.facebok.com/simplesuburbanliving
baghalman I am not sure how aluminum will react with heat and water so I can't say yes or no on that.
baghalman Your right, aluminum probably won't hold up to the heat. Just another thought, Corrugated stainless steel tubing? It has a much higher melting point then copper and it's alot cheaper. The only thing I'm not sure of if it will transfer heat to the water as well as copper would. Any thoughts?
baghalman I don't see any issues with stainless but I didn't think it would be cheaper. I will have to look into that. Good idea!
Can you use this with a Salt water inground pool?
+Paul Henry I don't see why not
I have a question. My coil in my wood heater drips like mad everywhere. Is this normal condensation?
that is normal condensation
We have a 22 x 42 ft in-ground pool, would this work for that too?
This would work pretty well for this size pool. Although you may want to add a larger coil of copper inside to give you a bit better heat. The nice thing about the in-ground pool is that it holds heat much better so that is a huge advantage and will help the efficiency of the heating system. Thanks for watching!
Great thanks! Yours is the best one I've looked at, much neater.
Neat ideas. Thanks. Just curious, are you from another country? I've never heard anyone pronounce gallons as gayllons. Just curious
It looks like you are using 1.5" pipe for the pool, so why not put 2 more coils into the heater and run all the water from your pump through the heater. You could even put 4 coils inside the heater and slow down the water to pick up even more heat...
I will be adding more coils to the heater for sure, the more heat I can get out of it the better. Of course, I was concerned a bit with cost at first and copper can be expensive so I will probably add another one or even two if I can fit them, thanks for watching!
SSLFamilyDad I would sort of slide the coil to the side so that you are getting more direct heat to the most possible of each coil.
Steve 1961P. yeah, that is a good idea, I was thinking about one coil at the far back, one more on the top front and I could angle them down along the sides also. Thanks for the ideas!
how do i do this....? i think only a plumber would know how to do this...i'm building a house soon...and i want to have something like this....:'(
+Theyahooyou ggg26 If you want to do this on a large scale to actually heat your home you will want to purchase an outdoor wood burning system. Just for a wpool though you can do this on your own pretty easily. I have a video on soldering copper as well if you are not familiar with that
I used your lead on this and created my own version, with some tweaks. th-cam.com/video/CfDhOTxXHog/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for the idea!
what about all the smoke and the air quality you might be disturbing others around your neighborhood?
Seriously, what is it with Americans and wanting their pool being heated during summertime? I really REALLY do not get that one. Do you guys even HAVE an immune system at all? :) LOL
Cools system tho, but I don't see the point of it unless you live in northern Europe. ;)
well I suppose when the pool temp is 64 degrees you would want it heated too! Michigan is the same Northern Germany as far as weather goes.
Yeah, but it doesn't feel very efficient in my opinion. The water is warm, but you have to burn a lot of wood to get it to that stage. How much do you throw in every week/month?
I just thought about something. Didn't the ancient Greeks and Romans use this system to heat the water in their pool houses? I think I recall seeing something like that in a documentary a few months ago.
Cheers.
Depends where in America they are. There a parts in the north that are well above parts of Canada in terms of Lat. My pool never reached 70 degrees F this summer. Was hardly used at all.
These don't work. Don't waste your time. Go buy a gas pool heater.