Working On Greenhouse Wood Stove Boiler System

I am building a wood stove boiler system to heat our off grid winter greenhouse using an antique Sears Roebuck wood boiler and two 55 gallon barrels to hold water as a heat mass.

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The wood stove is from about 1890 and was made by Sears Roebuck & co. It says The World's Largest Store. I guess that was a while ago. It also says "No Hot Pot 30".

My antique boiler is in perfect condition. This is the stove I used in the old camper when I first started The Off Grid Project.

I kept this old stove all these years in hopes to use it one day as a boiler like it was meant to be used.

Now I have my chance. I am mounting two 55 gallon steel barrels on the back corner wall of the off grid greenhouse. These will be filled with water and will be heated by the wood stove water boiler. The water will act as a thermal mass - or heat storage - to radiate the heat back into the greenhouse at night after the wood stove goes out.

I have some plumbing fittings on hand and I was trying to figure out the best way to connect the barrels to the wood stove. I was thinking I would have to drill some holes and use metal weld or epoxy to seal the parts together.

But while experimenting around with different pipe fittings I discovered that 55 gallon drums use standard 2 inch FPT fittings for the larger hole and 3/4 inch FPT for the small hole. These can be found in any hardware store.

So I went out and got some pipe fittings to connect my thermal mass greenhouse heating system together. But I ran into trouble after connecting the fittings together. I had put the large 2 inch fitting into a barrel but could not get the cap off the other barrel no matter how hard I tried. And I do not have time. In two days a deep freeze was setting in and I wanted to save the greenhouse.

Then I discovered that the barrel I already had connected was full of large pieces of rust. This will plug up the system and cannot be used like this.

I have to go out tomorrow and fine some better barrels to use in my off grid greenhouse water boiler heating system.

The ground is all covered in snow and it is staying. It has been very cold out recently. But this is good news for the solar panels. Colder solar panels are more efficient. And the white snow amplifies the sun on the solar panels, increasing solar power production.

Melanie has been baking everything herself here at the off grid homestead. She makes literally everything she needs if she has the materials on hand these days.

Melanie has also been working on wood burning our coffee coasters. She has real talent and is going to make different images on the coffee coasters. I had prepared a bunch of blanks for her using the planer and the sander.

We are making coffee coasters, tea lights, wall hangings and more using recycled pallet wood. You can find our store at http://www.recycledpalletproducts.com

Melanie has made a beautiful wall hanging as well. I put the pieces of pallet wood together and she painted them. We will be selling this on our store.

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Troy
http://www.thedoityourselfworld.com
http://www.theoffgridproject.com

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