Rocket Stove Water Heater Outdoor Shower | Part 3

hi Simon grade Schwartz and this is part three of my outdoor water heater using a cub rocket stove with a copper coil in it and I'm gonna upgrade this in three different ways first of all we're going to upgrade the tank I'm gonna go vertical with it gonna add pressure as well as some mixing secondly I'm going to move away from this smaller experimental coil in this cob rocket stove and I'm gonna go down to max and I'm gonna go with a larger coil in max max of course is my flue pipe cop and fire brick rocket stove which I initially intended to melt aluminium didn't work but I've been thinking about trying to figure out a good way to use max because as a rocket stove functions really well an initial idea I had was to put a coil inside it and so that's in fact what I'm going to do and then run it to the tank which is going to be mounted over here I'm gonna start by taking the tank down and I'll take it down to the garage you may be wondering why I'm building an outdoor shower in freezing temperatures didn't start out that way but now I'm determined to finish it I'm going to start by pulling apart the tank the fittings that I didn't glue I'm going to salvage some elements of this assembly and I'll unscrew this and cut here and here if I losing these elements here but I'll keep the valve that fitting and this tee and I'll have enough space here to put a coupling on alright now I'm going to put together this shower head assembly and because I'm going pressurize this time I'll be using primary in addition to glue I've cut these sections of pipe just long enough to allow the joints to collapse right on to each other I'm going to use this tea to bring in some straight cold water from the bottom of the tank it'll allow me to do some mixing between the hot water coming in here to allow it to balance the temperature a little bit the mixing valve is optional here but just a precaution in case I'm heating this water up a little too hot it got that suggestion out of the comments and so I appreciate your feedback the threaded bushing here and our connector let's prime this up for our threaded joints we're gonna be using teflon tape and I got a reminder in the comments that we're gonna be wrapping this in the opposite direction of how we'll be threading it so threading this way some be wrapping this way that way it doesn't undo our wrap and as we're threading it in thanks for the feedback to finish out the top end of the tank here I'm gonna put in a just a ring and a cap rather than buy a whole new section of pipe I'm just using a small piece off of a piece that I already had that's why it's dirty you don't see it anyway I'm gonna twist that till it starts to grip and then that's a nice tight joint now I'm gonna have a little bit of an air gap up here but the pressure itself will close that up a little bit since water has a higher density pressure density than air but it won't matter it'll be enough water level in here to feed out through this pipe alright now we're gonna put in the mixing valve line I'm actually going to bend that back toward the main part of the tank with some 45s trains coming a little harder to hear inside the garage [Music] I'm gonna have this valve come into this side check for square all right so there's the top of the tank with our mixing valve included this will probably come in and a little bit of an angle do let a limited amount of water through again only when I need it to cool off the hot water now I'm going to attach a 2 foot section of 4 inch PVC and do the top end of the tank all right so the top end of the shower a little more elegant than the last version the last element I'm going to add to the top of the tank here is a thermometer and I'm going with an analog thermometer just because I don't want to worry about batteries I'm gonna drill a hole and put this in the top of the water where it will be the hottest I'm gonna drilled this hole a little small and then use some PVC cement I push the thermometer in and dip a little primer on this cuz it actually softens the PVC a little bit I put this through the joint here between so I'd have more surface area on that hole the thickness of the pipe and the thickness of the coupling now I'm going to hook up the bottom of the tank I'm gonna use this hose bib with a half inch thread to be where I hook up the garden hose for the pressure line for the tank but I also want this to be the drain so it needs to be at the lowest point so I'm actually gonna put this coupling here and move or the outlet line for the cold water over to here and then put the half inch hose fitting here I've got 3/4 inch thread in here so I've got a adapter that goes from 3/4 inch to half inch to accept that and I'm going to move this fitting over to this 3/4 inch thread here alright let's do that assembly the only way I could get to three-quarter inch out of one and a quarter inch was to use this bushing to step it down I'm sure there's a single part that would do that but I couldn't find it too much on that on the top of this tee I'm going to go with a one and a quarter to 3/4 inch bushing and finally the 3/4 inch to 1/2 inch thread which will receive the hose bib and then on the cold water output side I'm going to use a 3/4 inch threaded elbow which has a 3/4 inch thread to receive the barbed fitting and to finish out the bottom of the tank will add the barbed fitting all right and there's the bottom of the tank cold water out mixing valve up pose fitting for our pressure plus the drain I will probably need to pull the hose in the winter because there will be a little bit of water down in this section that won't drain out the bottom here it would probably freeze and break this fitting so I'll have to do that there may have been a simpler way to do this but this is what I've got and that will fit up the center portion of the tank much simpler assembly here with a 2-inch bushing - 3/4 inch thread our 3/4 inch threaded elbow and the barbed fitting all right and the center portion of the tank is done and I'm just going to go ahead and move outside to the location of the shower to put the tank together I'm going to start by adding some mounting brackets for the tank and behind that small strip of wood is actually a 4x4 that supports the wall outside that will be the structure I'll be screwing into it's going to sit down on this 2x4 for support alright I'm gonna mount the bottom half of the tank I'm gonna modify the two brackets I used for the first set up to hold the tank vertically and that just involves shortening them and drilling a couple of holes I want the showerhead coming out at a 45 degree angle to the corner up top so I'm gonna rotate this so it's matching that angle here on the bottom I need one more spacer here on the 2x4 all right now I'm going to add the center fitting for the tank so my coil is going to be coming in from this direction so I'm gonna put the center portion on like this there are fitting coming out toward the stove [Music] now I'm gonna add the top of the tank in a test fit this first all right it's good to go put it in all right now that the tanks in I'm gonna put in my mixing tube in the bottom to the top [Applause] all right so the tank is set up now it's time to make the coil while we're looking at it from this angle note that the hot water inlet on this tank is in the middle I had a comment that suggested that I'd do that because that allows the hot water to mix with a column of cold water as it rises just to avoid that thermal layering which could result in getting scalded in a comment on the first build no more Martinez Ortiz noted that I probably would need a longer coil at least 20 feet he said so I am doubling the length of the coil to a 20-foot section of copper and John Sutherland also commented that a conical shape of open coils in the chimney would perhaps pick up more heat and John I like that idea so I'm actually going to use your suggestion we're gonna do open coils in the chimney and they're gonna be conical so in other words they're gonna taper to a tighter coil as they move toward the top channeling the heat in that cone as it goes up capturing more of it we're also going to leave them open in the chimney so they're not going to be embedded in the cob and the outside will be free-floating inside the chimney itself so all sides of the coil exposed to heat and a lot of you were concerned that the copper might melt if this copper were not to have water in it it would certainly melt in the temperatures inside the rocket stove although when I was a boy scout we actually got water to boil inside a Styrofoam cup in an open fire the water was so much more of a better heat sink that it pulled the heat right through that foam into the water boiling it before the foam melted so I'm confident the water inside the copper is gonna do the same thing as long as we keep that coil full of water I'm gonna leave the tips on when I bend this just to keep it from getting damaged so I need a straight section to get it out of the stove then we'll start our Bend or this is the pipe that we use to form the inside of max's chimney so I'm gonna use this as a guide as I've been DUP this coil [Music] slight conical shape going here I'm not sure I'm gonna be able get it much tighter than that though if I feel any more resistance as it's bending [Music] let's see how this fits in before I bend it up anymore so actually forgot that the circumference of that large pipe was just for the top foot of the chimney of the stove and the next section down is much more narrow probably more like a 8 inch so the widest part of my coil is actually too big to fit down into the bottom of the chimney what I think I'm gonna do is is invert the coil so instead of like this with the wide part at the bottom I'm going to invert it so that the narrow part is at the bottom and I think that's gonna work just fine I'm gonna finish pinning this up all right so here's the coil almost conical definitely more taper down here on the bottom and it widens as we get to the top and I've got my leader here to come out through the side of the stove what we'll hook up the cold water line and then a straight section here at the top as well where we'll connect the hot water line to the tank looks like about a two and a half foot section of coil here which will be about the full length of the chimney I'm happy about that because I don't have to drill through the side of the flue pipe in order to get this coil out of the stove it'll also make it easier to replace the coil if and when it wears out or fails I'm gonna start by removing the two pieces of rebar that the crucible sat on in this chimney this cobs been sitting out in the rain a little bit so it's fairly soft let's do a quick test fit for the coil alright looks pretty good actually I think I might do is shave off a little bit of the inside of the chimney certainly in the middle section to allow for more fire outside the coil I'm going to bring the coil out right here and thankfully this brick is a little bit loose so I'm going to pull that out thankfully there's a layer of cob here above the fire brick before the chimney flue starts now I can tunnel through without having to drill through a brick now I'll lower the coil in and feed it out through the hole which is easier said than done retrofitting is always more difficult than purpose building all right I think I got it I think I'm gonna just pull this whole brick out the stove should be okay supported on the inside making room for this coil here I need to straighten this out just a little bit to get it in stick out just a little bit further so I can attach the hose with the inlet part of the coil position I'm going to fill in this hole with some cob putting pressure with my other hand on the inside of the stove put a brick onto the front front corner for now there's the Train right cob in this gap right now I need to undo the coil just a little bit to bring the copper out this side instead of the way it's pointing now it puts it right in alignment with the hot water section right out remember how I said I was making this into freezing temperatures well actually here in late November in Georgia today at the highest 72 Fahrenheit I might actually be able to use this shower today another advantage of this particular location for the shower in addition to privacy is that the tank as you can see right now is in full sunlight I had a comment from Kessel Katzie out of Germany who suggested that I could warm the water with the heat of the Sun as well simply by painting the tank black which I will do as the last step in the process vielen doc - find all right now that the coil is in I'm gonna hook up the hoses [Applause] turns out creates inner diameter and 3/8 outer diameter are quite different so I'm using some bicycle inner tube to make a gasket for the copper connections here isn't the lightest pressure here to work that off I don't want to change the circle got a little slit cut in the inner tube I'm gonna push this inside the hose attempt to push this inside the hose work that over the copper till I can see the copper pushing through the slit inside and I can clamp down over the part with the inner tube [Applause] and hopefully this will hold I may have to do an official reducer using a shark bite or something like that to make this work but for now for our testing purposes hopefully this will hold connect the hot water side to the tank [Applause] all right the hoses are hooked up now we pressure test the end of the hose and the hose bid our male to male I've made a short section of hose that's got two female connections so gonna use that to connect the hose I'm going to set the valve to off and go turn on the hose we'll see how this holds up for leakage a little drip there let me see if I can't tighten it up a little I'm go ahead and open this valve and fill the tank [Applause] waters coming up here I need to see water at this point in the host to know that the coil is full so just running down from the top there all right we got water coming out of the showerhead a decent pressure there although the cap seems to be a big company bad I'm gonna lower the pressure valve on the bottom and see if that helps with the leakage it just seems to be the cap joint that's leaking all right and turn off the shower head and turn off the pressure and then we'll keep it up [Applause] just check the ambient temperature of the water coming out of the house and it's about 66 degrees so I'm going to calibrate this thermometer to 66 didn't realize it would be upside down when I installed it like that oh well all right now let's get a fire going [Music] [Music] [Music] still pretty smoky out of the top [Music] the fire gets hotter we'll see that smoke clear up [Music] [Music] that problem it's boiling the water out the top of here ya need to pressurize again all right so I pressurized and blew the hose that's not good and got it coming out the top here because we blew that line on fire dies down so I don't lose my copper that water's too hot to touch need some water too without the water coming out of the coil it's cooled down significantly so the water off a quick lesson from this one that pressure increase from the heat is probably too much for the system I need to keep the showerhead open to relieve that pressure at least while we're heating up so also those inner tube connections just weren't strong enough so we'll have to get the shark bites in a proper conversion from the 3/8 outer diameter to the 3/8 inner diameter all right so it's the next day Thanksgiving Day Happy Thanksgiving and I've had a little bit of time to think this through a little bit more so I think that this joint failed because the heat expanded the hose a little bit and loosened things up and it popped off I do think the pressure was a factor in this also so because it is in fact Thanksgiving Day the Home Depot is closed and so I can't get the sharkbite fittings that I think would be the right way to make this connection but I'm determined to finish the video so I'm actually going to make a better connection with the inner tube here I'm gonna put multiple hose clamps on this and I'm also going to two additional things number one I'm gonna open the the showerhead valve while we're warming it up in case there's any additional pressure can bleed off that way I'm also gonna make a smaller fire because I do think one thing that was quite obvious about this exposed coil is that it picks up heat a lot faster all right so let's make these connections we'll do test number two at a longer section of inner tube here and I'm actually gonna cut this to fit it's probably a better tape than duct tape for this that's for sure I couldn't if I didn't have any electrical tape that might have been a better option [Applause] [Applause] I'm gonna put my extra clamps on before I put this on three ought to do it alright this is getting pretty tight obviously as it goes down further it's just the frictions increasing I've got enough underneath there for two clamps and I'll probably put a third clamp down on the rubber itself just to keep that from sliding all right hopefully this will suffice for this particular test it's tighten these up obviously I would have preferred to have the third clamp on the hose itself but I suppose this is helping just a little bit all right let's fill the tank back up as soon as it starts flowing up the showerhead I'm going to turn off the pressure I turn the water back off let the showerhead drain out I'll leave this drip in like this I know right but my water level is right there at the top of the tank let's make another fire it's gonna be a smaller one this time [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] seems somewhat contradictory to have a small fire in a big rocket stove but like it that pressure thing figured out we'll have to take it easy [Music] and feel this getting warmer [Music] one big 2x4 in here will actually burn more slowly than a bunch of small sticks so the heat should be fairly constant definitely getting too hot to touch now [Music] the hose is getting warmer [Music] got a bubble moving up here so the coil is definitely producing some current so observing this now I'm not convinced it was the the increased pressure from the heat that made this pop off rather when I turned the hose pressure back on that's what popped off my loosened fitting thermometers moving up looks like about 80 degrees I'm gonna increase the fire a little bit here the temperature rise is definitely going to be slower given that I've got a whole extra two feet of tank that the hot water has to warm the air flow is just not as good with dimensional lumber like this like to eat left fours in pine they just doesn't burn as hot as oak which all that round wood I was putting in there was oak like we're approaching 90 degrees like getting some water boiling in the coil and that's pushing a little bit of pressure out the top two shower heads drip in a little bit temperatures up at about a hundred now the hose is warm and it's a little bit softer but I'm not concerned at all that it's gonna melt you can see some bubbles going up I'm happy with the water temperature right now and so I'm gonna shut this fire down and fire up the shower all right so my final temperature is about 110 degrees Fahrenheit which should be plenty comfortable for a warm shower so I've got the showerhead open and I'm going to turn on the hose pressure again my tank is still pretty leaky but I'll have to deal with that later so in the end I'm fairly pleased with this project the water was pleasantly warm although I think I probably could have heated up a little bit more of the tank it went to cold pretty quickly so I'll need to build a proper surround and a floor and then it'll be something I can enjoy during the warmer months but not today everything's giving everybody as always our mission here at green shorts is to help you see green so you can be green and save a little green by doing it yourself thanks so much for watching please like and share and subscribe for a new green shorts DIY video coming soon oh it's cold now [Applause]

Channel: GreenShortz DIY

Views: 246,236

Rating: 4.7419353 out of 5

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Id: z-ggbrGek2o

Length: 36min 14sec (2174 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 28 2019