How To Install a Hot Water Plate Heat Exchanger For An Outdoor Wood Boiler

Using an outdoor wood boiler to heat our hot water is one of the best decisions we have ever made. We now have endless hot water and it costs us pennies to use. Today we are replacing our old plate heat exchanger with a new one as we also move and install a new water heater.

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[jerrypeal]

Retired HVACR technician here and it’s amazing how these units can be such a small package and work so well .

[Self.reliant]

It's amazing that such a small exchanger can bring the temp up that much.

[waylonhartwell]

I was given a tip buy a plumber years ago when it came to threaded fittings and it has saved me a lot of aggravation over the years. And it was to do a wrap of Teflon and then cover the fitting in pipe dope and put the fitting together it had saved me so much aggravation with over tightening and leaky fittings

[mikefromuniontown]

Amen! I have a wood burner in the house next to a oil boiler . I even roughed in a way to connect something to "extract" the heat. that was 25 years ago. I just need to add that heat exchanger and I will move my electric hot water tank. thanks

[danielsampson]

Looked at a few houses with a wood boiler. Thanks for the video on how to increase efficiency.

[fraserstewart]

do you have other videos where you show the wood stove and how it connects with the exchanger
I'm wondering what happens when your tank reaches it max temperature. How do you stop it from boiling the water.
would love to do something like this but scared it would boil and explode

[steveboston]

Other than non-boiler season needs, another reason to keep the water heater piped in is for the anode to remove odors. I use the same anode as you based on your recommendation. Great channel, been a subscriber for years.

[scottrayhons]

I connected the top and bottom of my water heater with a 1" copper pipe as a water jacket and run a 3/4 " copper pipe inside of that for woodburner water to flow through. The system gravity flows through the water heater.

[jerrymarbut]

Great job! I am trading out my old Taylor for a Earth boiler. I will be adding these to my to hot water tanks.

[mikehenry]

I have had mine since 2008. Water is hot the more hot water you use the hotter it gets just opposite of electric or propane hot water heaters. I have checked mine at 130 to 140 degrees thats a real common number. I fill my boiler with soft water and rust prohibitor it has never clogged or caused trouble. I drain and replace water annually.

[TomFlomm]

Not sure if it's the same but Pex-al-Pex looks a lot like and seems to be made similar to Kitec which is recalled due to failures surrounding high pressure or high temperature applications. The pipe breaks down around the fittings.

[tractordan]

Like your use of copper plumbing, that's all I know.

[billypayne]

Liked video, but can you hook one up to a heat on demand water heater

[eddramseyable]

awesome video, is the water storage heater running i.e connected to electric, do you have a circ pump running off the tank or just gravity fed?

[leejacobsen]

Do you have any trouble with hardwater deposits on the exchanger?

[liammcgarrigle]

No idea why i watched this but it was very satisfying

Just as a note for anyone wanting to replicate he that's a bit too much solder and the Teflon tape at 1:54 is put on the wrong direction

[Kurt]

So is this like a modifed indirect system? Do you need an electric water heater to do this or can you use an indirect tank?

[condor]

Do you have a recirculating pump in the circuit to keep the water in the tank hot or is this only to preheat the cold water?

[adambater]

I put a 55k tube an shell exchanger on my domestic cold in and a side arm on the hot water tank works very good although a 110 k tube an shell would be better for actual constant hot water but the set up works good all in all

[sodhog]

Thank you for the vid. I was sold side arm heat exchangers which from what i read are not great and my hvac guy didn't like either. So my thought was a plate exchanger to put on maybe this summer. Do you not need a mixing valve because temperature wise the water heater only takes the water as hot as it wants and won't be too hot?