We took a radiator out of an old vehicle headed to the scrap yard, mounted it on a frame (after cleaning it up) and attached garden hose fittings (after testing it for leaks). We put this in the shower toweling off area as it has a drain in the floor. We hooked the hoses up to the gasification burner water heater outside that we have been using to heat water for the soaking tub. We put the pump we had previously used in a position to suck hot water from the heater tank and push it through the radiator. We set it up as an open system where the return water goes to a header tank that then drains back into the water heater.
This really did not work as we could not get circulation. It appears that there was some sort of airlock problem even though the look was open to atmosphere. We change the pump input to the bottom drain. We sometimes got circulation this way but had trouble with hose collapse. Some of the garden hose we used was just too soft with hot water to maintain shape without pressure. Then the bottom drain plugged with calcification deposits from inside the tank.
For the short periods when we did have good circulation, the air blowing out of the radiator was over 100 degrees (heater tank temperature over 140) and the room air temp did rise by 5 degrees. This is setup has terrible thermal efficiency as there are a couple hundred feed of uninsulated hose and the header tank is out in the open uninsulated. The outdoor temperature at the time was about 40 degrees.
Will have to solve the circulation reliability before continuing this experiment. Having the pump suck on the header tank and push into the normal heater tank inlet may be the solution.
This really did not work as we could not get circulation. It appears that there was some sort of airlock problem even though the look was open to atmosphere. We change the pump input to the bottom drain. We sometimes got circulation this way but had trouble with hose collapse. Some of the garden hose we used was just too soft with hot water to maintain shape without pressure. Then the bottom drain plugged with calcification deposits from inside the tank.
For the short periods when we did have good circulation, the air blowing out of the radiator was over 100 degrees (heater tank temperature over 140) and the room air temp did rise by 5 degrees. This is setup has terrible thermal efficiency as there are a couple hundred feed of uninsulated hose and the header tank is out in the open uninsulated. The outdoor temperature at the time was about 40 degrees.
Will have to solve the circulation reliability before continuing this experiment. Having the pump suck on the header tank and push into the normal heater tank inlet may be the solution.
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