Coil Up and Running

Last night I finally got my 38 ft. coil installed inside my Alaska stove. THe coil is wound like a large spring and sits at the top of the stove above the fire. I have the coil dumping into a 30 gallon storage tank which circulates the water in and out of my boiler. My plan was to get the stove to help out the boiler so it wouldn't have to turn on as much. I'm only heating a 700sq. ft. basement so I'm not asking too much from the stove?? I did notice last night that I had to increase the feed rate as I believe the water circulating through the coils does steal BTU's from the stove. In retrospect I have doubts about using a storage tank. On one hand when the baseboard heat isn't calling for heat the stove can dump the extra BTU's into the storage tank but on the other hand I'm asking the coil/stove to heat another 30 gallons of water which takes energy and running it through the boiler reduces effeciency because you have the cold air from the chimney cooling things off. I believe my boiler only holds about 10 gallons of water. I'd be interested in hearing opinions concerning the use of a storage tank. I'll also be posting pics soon.

Sure has Ls. I was waiting until I had several days off so I had plenty of time to take care of potential problems and to monitor my new setup. All my solder joints held fine but I had a leak at the circulator. At first I thought it was a solder joint and tried repairing it only to realize that there was a slight hair line crack in the bracket that sandwiches the Taco. I was lucky to have a spare Taco (brass) that I was going to use for another project. I heard the water air locked and percolating in the storage tank. I bleed out the air and all was fine. I still have some cleanup, tweaking and a few minor items I want to do before it's all done but I'm 98% finished at this point. My hands are bruised and I did get one nice burn on my hand too.

I also set the aquastat on the boiler to 120/130 and the water has been as high as 160 and when I turn on the radiators for the basement it falls quickly to 130. I will have better figures after a few days but so far so go. I should also add that the basement was at 52 and I was trying to get the temp to 65. I think once the temp in the basement levels off the boiler/storage tank should keep a much higher water temp. Next, I tested the system without the circulator and the water was still moving so that calms my fears if the Taco fails. I must admit that I'm a bit nervous about the coil failing and filling my house with water while I'm at work. I had the coil custom made from 316 SS with .065 wall thickness. It took me about a year not to think about the stove burning down the house too. What can I say? I hope that doesn't happen. If you look close on the last pic for this post you'll see the hanger I used to support the coil. Look in the upper right corner of the pic.

Last one and an update. Running my stove on 3 which is about half power I'm keeping the upstairs at 75 and the water in the storage tank and boiler is up to 180 degrees. I just turned on the heat in the basement to burn off some heat. After about 2 hours I checked the basement and the water in the boiler was at 140 and the temp hit the target of 65 for the basement. All in all I would say the coil is performing well. The aquastat on the boiler is turned all the way down. 120/130. Last update. I woke up this morning (17-20 degrees out) and the basement was at 65 trying to get to 68 and the water in temp in my boiler was at 140. Upstairs the temp is 78 (room with stove) and about 69 upstairs. The cool thing is I only burned about a 1/2 a hopper of coal.

Anymore updates? Great pics!

Thanks JJLL. Today I raised the temp in the basement to 68 and the temp in the boiler stayed around 140 and while I didn't watch the boiler all day it didn't seem to go on while I was down there. Even if the stove does 80% of the heat for the basement I'll be happy.