Water heating brick stove

[v12spirit]

Thank you david s for your inputs.

[david s]

If you’re interested in biogas then this discovery by an Australian company which splits methane into graphite and hydrogen without generating CO2, may interest you.
The methane can be sourced from water treatment plants or from natural gas wells.
https://www.hazergroup.com.au/

[v12spirit]

Thank you for the rich information,Alomran , that was amazing to know, I will need to contact you for some details.

[Alomran]

In Baghdad they have found "Baghdad Battery" a ceramic jar with copper wiring indicating the use of electricity go back to 224–650 AD.
https://www.unmyst3.com/2009/04/bagh...-artifact.html

There are so many ways that you can heat up your water from biomass and then regenerate the energy to heat up the floor, water, as well as cooking food.

The first bio-gas production digester of Iran was established in Niaz Abad at Lorestan province in 1975 by using the livestock waste of the village (http://www.suna.org.ir). Recently, some pilots for biogas production have been started up and operated by academic and research centers in Iran. Shiraz biogas plant has an overall energy production capacity of 1060 kW. The plant is able to convert 4 million m3 biogas into electricity and generate 7189 MWh of electricity per year. In Iran's Mashhad biogas plant was constructed with a total capacity of 650 kWh in the old municipal waste landfill. This plant can deliver 4 million kW to the power network per year by using around 2 million m3 biogas produced. Currently, two units of this plant with a capacity of 330 kW are supplying electricity for 600 families in Mashhad, and the rate of electricity production will be increasing to 1 MW in the near future (http://www.suna.org.ir).

More on generating gas from sewage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24Zxr2KHW6s

[Alomran]

Re: Water heating brick stove
Once again, I welcome and appreciate sharing any references or experiences regarding PUMPLESS instant hot water on the tap, as well as PUMPLESS central heating systems.

Hi, I wish I had joined the group earlier to assist on this thread.

In 1995 I carried out a research on sustainable designs. I looked at the Arab/Muslim Design in Andalusia, Egypt, Baghdad and Isfahan (Iran).

The heat from the fire chamber in your oven could also have been utilised to created under floor heating as in The Baños Arabes in Seville had designed few centuries back. The water comes from the mountains and it comes in a little man-made stream running above the roof. The burning chamber is underground, which generated enough heat to heat the floor and generate hot water and steam for the steam rooms.

I beg to point out that there is a prominent scholar from old Syria known as Bahāʾ al-dīn al-ʿĀmilī, who was a great mathematician, philosopher, architect, engineer, and a predominant religious scholar. Born in 1547 in Balbek in the old "Great Syria" (Currently includes Lebanon). He built numerous outstanding buildings including all the golden domes at the shrines in Iraq and Iran.

To this day ALL of his design work is considered as mysterious master-pieces. One of which is Isfahan's (Iran) public bath, which enjoyed several steam chambers and hot showers as well as saunas for an entire city of Isfahan. The public bath in Isfahan (also known as Sheikh Bahai's Bath) was the first to devise a mechanism to produce and utilise the use of biogas from sewage to heat up the water (1530–1622).

One good way to generate energy is by utilising the methane gas from the heavy waters (Sewage). I know that in 1996, Bill Dunstable, an architectural tutor at the London "Architectural Association" had designed his house where all of his cooking and hot water were heated from energy produced by his sewage!!!

This is a simple video explaining the energy generated from a simple sceptic tank for cooking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAkIKxA3Jm0

https://www.researchgate.net/publica...future_demands

I have seen near Baghdad - Iraq in old archaeological 9th century BC, houses/palaces with underground ceramic septic tanks link up in a sophisticated chain of chambers, widely believed that they were used to generate methane to burn for heating water.

The entire Isfahan public bath functioned without consuming any evident conventional source of energy. He left a candle in an open chamber at the entrance of the public bath that had the fire constantly running while its wick was not burning, from which the sound of burning up the wick was humongous. He left a mysterious puzzle stating that "the fire will stop after the people stop use the bath by 6 months or remove the candle from its place". public bath functioned from the 1567 until the 1920's, when the colonial British Army looked at the bath and were puzzled, so they decided to dig it up to find out how and where did the fire derived its energy from. A colonel from the British Core of engineer decided to open up the wall. As a result they found that the energy was derived from the heavy waters accumulated in special chambers that emitted methane gas from which the gas was accumulated in special chambers and the candle was designed to be in a position to that its wick only maintained the flare yet the stream of air was designed never to touch the wick!! Since the 1920 no one managed to return the burning process back. The bath remained closed and open to the public only as a historical site.

[v12spirit]

Re: Water heating brick stove

Thank you Steve for your kind wishes.

[Greenman]

Re: Water heating brick stove

The level of duress that you live with is beyond what most on this forum have to cope with. I hope you get to progress your build and that you and your family stay safe.

[v12spirit]

Re: Water heating brick stove

Still since my last post on that thread waiting for the road to open in order for the supplier to deliver lime or cement fondue. That is too annoying isn't it?

[david s]

Re: Water heating brick stove

What's happened to your kitchen oven?

[v12spirit]

Re: Water heating brick stove

Here is the temporary setting that I considered due to necessity and lack of materials. I hope nobody will be terrified by the horrible look of the setting.. I will hopefully be completing the project in the summer. But was obliged to do this temporary setting for this winter.

I brought my dad's thrown wood stove, installed the hot water tank on its chimney, and lined it with the used bricks from my reconstructed brick oven with no mortar just to hold heat from the wood stove.. The heated water in the tank together with the bricks could contribute to a fairly meld warming for the room all day and overnight even when there was no fire in the stove. I'm pretty satisfied with it. I could have a shower anytime without worrying about hot water.

I'm truly amazed at how good water is at holding heat; my 90 liter hot water tank just drops less than 5 degrees per hour without any insulation. It could even be 3 degrees per hour under 60 degrees provided there was no hot water request. I'm happy with the absence of insulation; that lost heat dissipates in the whole room that it feels warm in the cold morning. But the plan is that all of this will hopefully be rearranged to a sophisticated gravity fed central heating system as a summer project.

I read some poor articles about instant hot water on the tap achived by gravity and convection. I believe that I'm still new to the concept that I cannot start plumping it right away. If anybody has any references regarding that, I welcome and appreciate sharing them.

To overcome the inherent problem of having the hot water tank far from the kitchen/bath and the consequent waste of water upon every hot water request, I came out with a simple idea that could save water but still needs one to wait for a couple of minutes before getting the hot water on the tap. It is pumpless and utilizes gravity.

I just added a Tee joint at the furthest hot water tap and attached it with a tap (the one surrounded with a circle in the sketch) leading to a secondary tank that resided lower than the main water tank. On every hot water request, I opened that tap for a while until it felt warm which is an indicator that hot water has arrived, then shut the tap and could have hot water on all hot taps instantaneously. The shifted cool water in the way of the hot water filled the temporary tank by means of gravity. This temporary tank was reconnected to the toilette tank so it never overflew.

I addressed the main parts of the setting in the attached photos.

Once again, I welcome and appreciate sharing any references or experiences regarding PUMPLESS instant hot water on the tap, as well as PUMPLESS central heating systems.

[v12spirit]

Re: Water heating brick stove

As I said before, no need for a slab because there was one already. I used scoria for insulating the hearth. With the help of my nephews who picked the scoria up -it is free and plentiful in the town- I could have a good amount of it, it comes in big chunks that I needed to crumble them into smaller ones 1-3 cm for insulation. Scoria has many air bubbles in it and is light weight, with the help of random aggregates on one another unmoving air will be trapped in it so a reasonable insulation can be achieved..

I mixed scoria with cement so scoria aggregates could be loose enough to insulate and coherent enough to support the weight of the stove. I think the ratio was roughly close to the vermicrete ratio; 5:1 - scoria:cement.

Sloped the contents of the wheel barrow in the floor and leveled them gently, then using my weight walked gently on it for a few minutes to allow the aggregates to settle, then left it untouched.

I will leave it for a week while carefully spraying it with a little water every morning.

[v12spirit]

Re: Water heating brick stove

The stove heat will be shared between the two rooms so I cut the wall between the two rooms to allow for heat sharing. I cut the floor too to enable for pouring a slab and putting an insulation over. To my surprise, I found a slab already under the floor tiles so I didn't need to pour one.

The cut was done using an angle grinder. Such an amazing tool, just 1-2 cm deep cuts could control destroying the wall as well as the floor so the hammer strokes did not affect the areas outside the cuts!,

I poured (white) cement all around the cuts in the floor to support the surrounding cut floor tiles. The white block wall-side is because I found a big crack under the wall and wanted to support it.

A lesson I learned from using a hammer and a chisel for destroying; so many slight strokes are better than a few strong ones. I reckon the opposite holds for hole opening; one strong stroke opens a neat small hole. I used the second rule when I opened a hole in the wall for the water tube.

[v12spirit]

Re: Water heating brick stove

Before posting any updates for my project.
Just want to make clear first that THIS PROJECT IS EXPERIMENTAL and that this is NOT A FIREPLACE NEITHER A CENTRAL HEATING SYSTEM. The philosophy of this project is based on my own observations of fireplaces, wood fired rocket stoves, my shallow experience in plumbing, and some elementary basics of physics, and most importantly a good common sense and a strong well to device a custom solution for a given problem; lack of electricity and diesel as the source of hot water and stove feuls respectively in my region.
The build will move with two main guidlines in mind
1- To start from my custom requirements (convenience), and go ahead as long as the results are physically satisfying (functionality), and to steer away from "convenience" to the standards as soon as I can not obtain a good "functionality" anymore.
2- To make my build extensible, by which I mean
2-1- to make the project tolerate any functionaliy-driven modifications without too much tearing.
2-2- to make the project accomulatively built i.e. it can be run with its minimum options without the need to wait until it is finished (that is urgent because of the cold weather now) while I can manage to add its options as long as I can . I don't want it to take that time my steel oven has taken so far.
With this criteria, this project should be running soon. Some "luxury additives" like insulation, hot water radiators, sensor valves, and even decorative finishings can be applied anytime. The main concern now is some room warming and water heating.
The build naming included "brick stove" not "fireplace". This implies that the brick build does not comply with standard firplace design and dimensions even it exploits the properties of each in a way or another.

[v12spirit]

Re: Water heating brick stove

I have attached a very sloppy napkin diagram. It's just a rough sketch to illustrate what I was thinking (really rough). What do you think? Too complicated?

-J

Great idea SevenAcre! Just will study how safe I can implement it.
Good sketch btw.

[SevenAcre]

Re: Water heating brick stove

Sounds like a great project v12, except for the part of having to do it out of necessity. Hopefully it won't turn into a chore. I'd like to just toss in my two cents here and join some of the fun. I think I'd look at this as two systems: You gravity feed cold house water down from the main tank into copper coils that are inside the chimney tank. Water is boiled under pressure in the chimney tank which heats the house water through the copper tubing before going out to your shower.

The pressure in your chimney tank is what you bleed off to the radiator to heat the house. The steam pressure should be enough to return the condensed water back to the chimney tank where the process begins again.

I have attached a very sloppy napkin diagram. It's just a rough sketch to illustrate what I was thinking (really rough). What do you think? Too complicated?

-J