in hot water again finally.

I’m-m-m-m-mmmmmm Back-k-k-k-kkkkk

this is a picture of the 13 kw unit and is identical in appearance to the newest 9 kw unit i bought. 

      Again taking a break while life provides me with new material to entertain you with.  Isn’t life grand? My latest problem and your newest source of entertainment as you laugh at my misfortunes have to deal with an earlier problem I had with the natural gas or lack of it as the case may be. When your house and heat and all other appliances are dependent on natural gas for such things as heating water to cooking to drying clothes to just taking a shower or washing your clothes. Such necessities of life are much easier when the primary fuel source is working, when it isn’t, it can get you into hot water, or lack of it real quick.

       My first transition was the cooking part of my life and that involved my sister getting me one of those induction cooktop burners that work off of regular household current and are efficient as well as a good source of heat for cooking. I still have the natural gas supply but at one point I was forced to cook on the wood stove prior to sherry providing me with the cooktop. It has been a lifesaver for me so to speak. For the most part it provides me with all the heat I need to cook anything, and is responsive to the variability needed to cook whatever I need , the only limitation is the type of pan that needs to be used like stainless steel , but I believe for my health’s sake that going to stainless steel and cast iron is good for me since Teflon and aluminum pans have been linked to cancer and early onset Alzheimer’s , though some of you feel I may be a poster child for both , I have yet to be diagnosed and really don’t care if I ever am . I have become creative in creating one pan dinners and really think that I by myself could easily get by with it. I do miss the oven though and some day may look for an induction stove with a regular oven to bake with. It is not a real priority now for me though. 

this is a pic of the water line that burst the first time. you are looking at the point it is stamped at 200 psi.. normal water line pressure is rated at 40 -60 pounds per square inch and this line would have easily been adequate in pressure, but still burst due to the faulty unit. 

      My next problem was hot water, by limiting my gas usage with the stove I figured that this would help extend the gas supply and would allow me to use the hot water heater, but this was not to happen, instead it meant daily planning as the gas supply dwindled and I would have to plan my usage to the point I was stuck at times with no gas to heat water to bathe, wash clothes, dry clothes, do dishes, or to heat the house. Nothing, nada, this sucked the big one on occasion. As far as heating the house I had wood, but this required me to install not one but two heaters as the first one wasn’t adequate to heat much. Also I had to rebuild the chimney and just recently after having a problem with the draft had to make some more modifications to the chimney to improve the draft, and now I am getting good heat. I should have plenty of wood to heat the house as my nephew and myself are cutting wood to sell as well for me to use. Yesterday I managed to pull 3 good logs out for my cabin. This wood thing Is forcing me out in the woods and cleaning up treetops from where mom had some trees removed. So the wood burner has been a good thing. 

 

the picture above represents the second the damage the second bursting caused blowing one fitting completely out and swelling and bursting another pipe simultaneously. this is all schedule 40 pipe rated at 600 pounds per square inch.

 

this is a sideways shot at the pressure relief valve designed to alleviate these problems but it never went off as i had installed it on the hot water side of the heater as i was supposed to. there was no damage on the hot water side and all the pressure was on the cold water side for some inexplicable reason as if there was some kind of blockage that existed between the two sides when the water flow was shut off. i have no clue what happened.

 

   just a sideways shot showing the wet floor as  result of the water bursting as it did. luckily it was in the back \room and caused no other damage. 

     I even went to the extent of putting a loop of copper pipe around the top of the wood burner to heat the water I need or at least reduce some of my energy needs by preheating the water before it goes into the water heater. This worked ok but needs to be reworked and with better pipe also there needs to be some kind of water holding device where a quantity can be stored before entering the lines. This needs to be done with copper pipes and use a steel holding tank of at least a six gallon holding capacity sitting directly on top of the wood heater. This needs protected by a pressure relief valve to prevent overheating and bursting of pipes.

    To overcome my water heating problem on a short term basis till I can get the wood heater water heating apparatus going, I needed to get busy and buy some kind of a water heater. I would have needed this regardless of whether I could heat water on wood stove or not. I took to eBay and was looking at first at conventional electric water heaters and then I started looking at on demand water heaters and then I found one I thought would be perfect and later on down the road could be used with my passive water heater that I plan on installing on the wood stove. Making kind of a hybrid water heater that would combine solar and wood and then to bring the final water temperature up to the level I need.  I would use the on demand water heater. This could be used in conjunction with whatever electric power I provide down the road that would provide the electric I need to bring the final temperature up to my desired temperature. This would be the last step in the water heating process and would be used as a last resort as try to limit my use of electric , they are 99.9 percent efficient and only heat water when it is needed. I am putting it in line with my regular water hear and using it as a storage device to overcome surges in hot water produced by the unit. I plan on super insulating the old water heater , so that my heat losses are minimal at best.

     The first water I bought after looking at the passive water heaters was a Rheem 13 kw water heater that produced 5.0 gallons of hot water per minute, which is more than you need to take a shower or do whatever. This I bought at an online auction for 109 dollars and thought I had received a great deal and although I was the only one bidding on it and I won the auction. This required a major modification of my plumbing system on the advice my plumber friend and this cost me about 150 to date doing all the work myself. I had to install an electric line to handle the increased amperage and this represented a major portion of the cost associated to safely handle the increased amperage needed to heat the water. I felt that this was the answer to my heating problems and in the end it is, but not until I had my fair share of problems with my bargain water heater.,

    I installed the water heater after receiving it and followed all directions on startup procedures making sure I chased all of the air out of the lines by opening a spigot and running the water till all traces of air had cleared the lines. I tried to start the water heater and couldn’t get anything, I took the cover off the unit and pressed the reset button for the thermostat and it took off but still wasn’t right, and I had a leak in my plumbing so I decided to shut everything down and fix the leak and that is when it happened the first time. As soon as I shut it off the running water the water heater was supposed to quit heating water instead it went into turbo charge and heated the water on the cold water side of the unit to boiling and I could hear the gurgling in the lines and it just seemed like all the lines were swelling leading up to the heater , and at that instant I knew it was going to blow when I lunged for the electric box. It burst a line rated at 200 pounds per square inch and rained hot water all over my head. I shut off the water and the mess slowly subsided but I could still hear the water gurgling and I was cautious as I looked in bewilderment at the unit.

     I was disappointed and pissed at the work I had done to get to this point as it required about 7 hours of steady on my feet work and in an instant my work was shattered by this unit leaving me frustrated and not knowing what I could have done in error to make this happen. I looked and looked, going over every inch of the unit checking electrical connections studying it in my brain looking for answers as to why it happened and how I could prevent it from happening again. Also here I was at 8 o’clock in the evening and too late to go to hardware to pick up more plumbing parts, so I  did inventory and looked at isolating the unit and had enough parts to make it happen again, and I did, around 11 that night after eating supper and checking everything out I fixed the area where it had burst before and tried the water heater , and again everything was fine till I turned off the water at the spigot, and by the time I reached the electric box it again swelled another pipe and burst it with a loud earth shattering explosion of hot water and force enough to send plumbing parts across the room.

     Again I didn’t understand what was going on and had decided that there was a defect in the heater and took to eBay and bought another model that night that was smaller and was a new unit as opposed to the unit I originally bought that was supposed to be as good as new with the owner claiming it was in new condition but was returned for some reason undisclosed. It was because the damn thing was dangerous is why. I paid more for the newer unit but installed it 2 nights ago and it is world different from the other despite being almost identical in size and capacity to heat. And never has it indicated any of the problems associated with the other one.

      In fact I had to do some more plumbing last night but was able to take a shower in my house for the first time in a couple of weeks. Before I would have to heat water on the wood stove or hope there was enough gas to heat the water to take a bath. For me a bath when my muscles are sore is about the only reason I want to take a bath anytime. Well I am still waiting for anything from eBay after requesting a refund for the first unit and have found out the seller is no longer connected with eBay and I hope that eBay resolves all that, and I can get my money back through their guarantee. We will see.