How best to heat water using excess heat from oven

[Nic The Landscaper]

Re: How best to heat water using excess heat from oven

I would consider using the exhaust (smoke) from the the oven to heat the water. Maybe you could bend the flue back over the top of the dome and create a series of chambers or heat exchangers that utilize only the heat that is already escaping from the oven?

[Ken524]

Re: How best to heat water using excess heat from oven

Your water heater will pull heat out of the oven (we spend a tremendous amount of time and effort to avoid this very thing). The insulating layer is there to keep the heat in the bricks. Putting a heat exchanger between the insulating layer and bricks defeats the purpose of the insulation.

Heating the oven AND water = more wood.

If you are using the heat exchanger after you are done cooking pizza, the oven will cool down rapidly making retained heat cooking impossible. I can cook for 3 days with one firing.

The other thing you'll have to figure out is what happens to the water trapped in the heat exchanger as the oven heats up. If the water isn't flowing, it will become superheated under extremely high pressure. The bricks in the dome hit over 1000F. Those temps combined with the pressure should provide a pretty exciting show. You'll need some sort of relief valve.

Sounds like an interesting idea, but I suspect it will take a LOT of careful engineering (and wood) to heat your hot tub.

[brucefehring]

Wondering if anyone has had experience in running piping through the insulating layer during construction of a new oven to heat water for a nearby hot tub after baking? Concerns are creation of steam (bad), best type of piping to use, size of piping, etc. I am considering a constantly rising coil of 1/2 inch flexible copper piping around and around the dome's insulating layer which will utilize normal house water pressure to keep water in constant supply and movement while oven is heating and cooling.

Your feedback, please...