Hitzer 30-95

Hi guys , couple questions now .... thinking possibly about putting in a hot water loop in my stove , think a good idea ? and the other is to put in a heat reclaimer on the stove-pipe think its worth the money ?

Lots of people have put a hot water coil in their stove and they can be effective if properly and safely done. I would much prefer an external heat exchanger on the outside of the stove for greater safety and no corrosion worries.

Regarding a heat reclaimer on the smoke pipe I would not do that unless you are running the stove so hot that stack temperatures are excessive. Normally your stove has reasonable stack temps. and you need some heat there to maintain draft and to help retard corrosion. Also a big pain when you want to take down the smoke pipe to clean.

Now you say external , your talking like a coil that would lay on the back of the stove or bottom ? You say this because of the thought of possible over heating water ?

Other question anyone spend the extra money on the gold colored door ? does it stain easily ? or anything thinking of buying it ... the wife wants it to look more dressy since the stove sits in our family room.

Many years ago (>~15?) I gave a 90 gal water heater to a friend that runs a Harmon Mk III. He stripped it of all insulation and placed it near the back of the stove and used a gravity loop to his "live" water heater. I don't recall if he had a loop over the stove or not ... maybe. He'd turn off the "live" unit during heating season. The passive tank just gave up the ghost last year but it worked fine for him up till then. He did comment that the second person to shower would be reaching the end of the warm water supply but they lived with it just fine.

John27elec wrote:Now you say external , your talking like a coil that would lay on the back of the stove or bottom ? You say this because of the thought of possible over heating water ?

It's just safer and no corrosion of pipes.

You cant just lay a coil there, there has to be good contact with the stove. Do a search in the forum search box for "external hot water" for some ideas. There was a good thread using copper fin tube that seemed to work well though it did use a circulator for distribution.