Water Heating for a Stove

The configuration you are looking for is known as a "sidearm boiler". If your burn chamber is a vertical cylinder, the water coil would be one or more coils of pipe or tube near the outside, with "cold" water feeding in at the bottom and hot water (and/or steam) out the top. Steam cleaners are also built like this.

If the water/steam side is closed, there MUST be a pressure relief valve. Another possible issue is the condensation of combustion vapors on the outer surface of the coil. If your fuel has any sulfur in it, these vapors will condense as sulfuric acid, resulting in corrosion.

Buy an AGA, Job done.

An Aga sounds good, or a Rayburn. Lots of homes used to have back boiler systems but they were phased out as modern boilers were more efficient.

If you don't buy the Aga (which is a good tip!), then do use thick wall steel tube for the heating coils, not copper.

Make sure that you have a really large storage tank as the efficiency of such a boiler will/should be very good, that is, you don't want to find you still have a hot fire and everything starts boiling!!!

An "open" system is safer to design, build and use, rather than a pressurized one.....put the header tank as high as you can.....if you use larger diameter piping for the heating water, and careful design, you may not need a pump as the water will circulate by convection alone.

Do use something in the water to stop corrosion.

Make the heating circuit separate from the water you will be using.

Make sure that you can "descale" your system easily sometime in the future, assuming you have some lime in the water where you are....

Best of luck and keep us informed of your progress......

Hello theobrown.

Some reading that may be of interest is about a Russian Fireplace. This link is one of not very many that Blackle could find that were correct.

These are a high-mass masonry stove, and may not be appropriate for your use. I was a helper on constructing a few of these... If you go 'Whole Hog', they are time and material consuming, but they are a good long-term return.

Since you're using radiators, I would recommend a circulating pump and controls. Zone controls are good for sending heat where it is needed. A side chamber welded to your burner can have a top opening for cleaning. Keep it simple and thick. You want it to all burn out/rust out at the same time, then you make a new one.

Circulating pumps and zone controls are all low power, don't use much electricity.

For sure treat the water. Find what home heating boilers use.

Hello theobrown:

The wet back stove unfortunately has long passed, however us old cockies not be beat got around that. In the bottom of your stoves firebox put a heavy walled container with two pipes that pass through the back of your stove. The reason for botom of firebox allows coals to sit on top and not interfere with wood loading. Large pipe small pipe doesnt realy matter tap will contol flow. However a safety valve is a good idea. Nothing can stop Steam, it will just keep on building up pressure to some thing gives.