heating water with a wood stove

You can have a shower powered by wood and sunshine. We have set one up using our tiny wood stove, two old tea urns and two pumps. With a little plumbing jiggery pokery and a sensible eye on the potential hazards we think we have a great little system which could be easily replicated in any off grid scenario.

The dream of being able to take a hot shower using water heated by your wood stove is probably one shared by many. We have set up a system in our off grid shed which will show you how to make this dream a reality.

If you have a shepherds hut, garden room or off grid cabin then you have probably mused over the question of how do you have a supply of hot water for showering etc. when you are not connected to the ‘grid’?

One solution is to install a small wood stove as this will allow you to not only keep you warm and cook your food but also be the answer to the conundrum of how to supply hot water.

Apart from simply popping a kettle or pan onto the top of your stove, how else can your woodstove heat water? The answer is to install a stainless steel back boiler inside your stove to directly heat the water from inside the firebox. This means you can organise hot water on tap whilst also keeping the top of your stove free for cooking.

We have set up an ‘on tap’ hot water system powered by wood and the sun using two old copper tea urns and two pumps.

The water is heated inside the stove in a stainless back boiler and then using the principle of the natural thermo-syphon is drawn off into a copper tank . This tank of heated water once heated up will act as a thermal heat store.

This heat store can be used to heat the second urn of water for washing etc. . Using our side boiler installed in a Hobbit stove we connected the back boiler to an old copper urn which holds around 35litres. or 7 gallons and incorporating 1″ copper connecting pipe. The small 12v pump circulates the water inside the store until the desired temperature has been reached for your shower. (42.8 degrees in my case). Two fish tank thermometers have been fitted so that both urn temperatures can be monitored.

Our tiny woodstove has two back boiler options whereby the boiler replaces either the rear or side firebrick. With the side boiler the customer can choose which side of the stove they would like the pipe fittings to exit from. The side boiler is the solution for when the stove has both the boiler and direct air system fitted together. This boiler option incorporated with any small wood stove with a similar hot water set up could be the answer to your hot water needs.

You can watch a video about this system here

Coming soon is our tiny wood cooking range stove which will give you the above potential as well giving you the scope to do a wide range of cooking baking and roasting as well as keeping warm and cosy. Hot water, cooking and heating all from your tiny wood stove.