Domestic coil

Here's the question? Can I connect the domestic coil inside a Magnum Stoker to a circulator pump and get any appreciable heat transfer into baseboard radiation in my upstairs rooms? I would think that any heat transfer would be better than none at all. Stoker is located in the downstairs family room of a 3BR raised ranch and heats the downstairs fairly well. The upstairs rooms can be up to 10 degrees cooler than the downstairs...depending on the outside air temp.
Has anyone else performed this type of operation and are there any pitfalls to watch out for?
Thanks in advance...

I'm doing something similar with an Alaska stove and a custom built coil. You're not going to get enough surface area with most of the coils being sold for domestic. I have 38ft. of pipe in my stove and it heats a 700 sq. ft. basement quite nicely. Heating an upstairs is not as easy since a basement stays warmer just by being underground. While my coil is 8" wide the original design was 12" wide (looks like a large spring) but I didn't want to cut the metal plate that sits inside the stove. In retrospect I probaly should have to have gotten more pipe and more turns and an increase in heating capacity. PM me and I'll send you the info from the company that created the coil for me. I paid about 550.00 for the coil and another 500.00 in pipes and fittings, etc. While my coal consumption went up maybe 20% it's still more economical to heat using coal and a boiler was not an option for me.

Hi Scrubber,

I went through thew same round of questions a few months ago. From my personal experience, I've gotten REALLY hot domestic water, but I don't think I would anywhere near the amount of hot water needed by baseboard.

(actually, I sort of tried.) I got the boiler water temp up to ~150F with the stove and turn on the circulator pump. The water was below 100F in less than 10 minutes./

p.s. I have the SAME problem you have. RR, stove in lower part of the house. We have 2 bedrooms and I cut a vent into each bedroom. The I ran insulated 8" flexible duct from the top of the Magnum Stoker to a 6" tee then off to each bedroom. It helped a LOT!!!

The bedrooms are as far away as I can get from the stairs (which I'm using for a cold air return). Greg pointed out to me that it's one thing to get the heat into the room, but without a place for the cold air to return downstairs, you are not going to get the results you hoped for.

Here's a post about my hot water hookup.

Harman Magnum Stok- Hot Water Coil Update - It's HOT HOT HOT

In the 1st post you'll see a link to my original post. Beware. I asked a LOT of simple questions as this was my first experience with heating systems.

oh, one more thing. Greg (lsfarm) todl me I should run a duct from upstairs to the INLET of the distribution fan on my stove. This in additional to my other 2 vents on the other end of the housr, woulc create a completee loop and the stove will move a lot more air through the house. I didn't do it, since I'm probably going to buy a stoker boiler next year and I didn't feel like cuttin another vent in my house.

I have a custom coil in my channing which is about 3 times the size of any commercial coil and it is just enough to keep my boiler hot enough to make the domestic hot water. A stove is a stove and you'll never get enough coil in a stove to more than heat domestic hot water. If you want to run base board you are better off buying a used coal boiler.

jpen: Maybe the stove won't do an entire 2nd floor but a good sized coil should help the boiler stay off longer. With oil at 100.00 a barrrel every bit helps. In my application the coil is doing most of the work and saving me lots of bucks. My next project will be solar. I currently have solar panels on my house that I installed for my 30,000 gallon pool. My plan is to tie in a solar panel to my domestic hotwater heater. From about May to October I can keep my pool at 85. That's with (7) 4 x 10 panels so one panel should easily handle 40 gallons. The only problem is that my current panels are made of plastic and while I could use them I would rather have something more durable that I could use year round. I was thinking of having another SS coil custom made or use copper and sandwich it inside a box with glass on both sides.

I wouldn't try to heat an entire floor with a stove and domestic coil, but I do heat 1 room ( HW baseboard ) and all my domestic HW with an Alaska and a double coil setup. With the stove running med to med-high I get water temps 170 - 180 degrees. Without the baseboard sucking some of the heat out of the water, the PRV would be kicking in alot, especially at night when no HW is being used.

The next project will be putting a radiant flooring sys. in, using the stove and coil for the heat source. Depending on how well your house is insulated, radiant heat only needs a few degrees higher water temps than your desired room temp.

First let me preface this with "I don't know squat about Plumbing" or HVAC but making a coil and mounting it shouldn't be to tuff after seeing some of the others on here.

I really want to tie into my Hot watertank becuase it's now the single largest Electrical draw in my house. I was told that I would need a seperate tank becuase my hotwater tank is more than 10 feet from my stove...(true or false) I'm thinking this may be a good off season project.

Ed.A wrote:First let me preface this with "I don't know squat about Plumbing" or HVAC but making a coil and mounting it shouldn't be to tuff after seeing some of the others on here.

I really want to tie into my Hot watertank becuase it's now the single largest Electrical draw in my house. I was told that I would need a seperate tank becuase my hotwater tank is more than 10 feet from my stove...(true or false) I'm thinking this may be a good off season project.

Did you mean to say a separate pump b/c your stove is more than 10' from your hot water tank?

YOu should just need a pump if it's more than 10' away from your stove, along with the other valves, PRV's etc...

Hi Scrubber,

The domestic coil in your Harman is probably the 1/2 loop in and out stainless coil that Harman uses in most of their stoves. I am familiar with the coil as I am a Harman dealer besides other things. The coil will only absorb 1000-2000 btu's per hour at 1 gal per min flow. The typical base board radiates 300 to 500 btu's per ft depending on water temp. I did a quick and dirty calculation on a 12x14 bedroom with good insulation and 30 deg outside temp and came up with 6000 btu per hour. I fear the coil will fall way short of your needs

HI Steve.n it's good to see some actual numbers relating the btu gain/loss with a coil and a length of baseboard.. I've known that the amount of heat from a standard coil would be inadequate to heat much of a room, but did not have numbers to support my experience.

Thanks!!
Greg L

beatle78 wrote:Did you mean to say a separate pump b/c your stove is more than 10' from your hot water tank?

Actually I was told a seperate tank.

YOu should just need a pump if it's more than 10' away from your stove, along with the other valves, PRV's etc...

Good deal, that will solve alot trouble.
Thanks.

Ed.A wrote:

beatle78 wrote:Did you mean to say a separate pump b/c your stove is more than 10' from your hot water tank?

Actually I was told a seperate tank.

YOu should just need a pump if it's more than 10' away from your stove, along with the other valves, PRV's etc...

Good deal, that will solve alot trouble.
Thanks.

Also, there was another post recently that Greg (lsfarm) posted and said you could wire the pump to run 100% of the time and you could control the flow by putting a ball valve in the line and partially closing it until the desired flow is reached.

Beatle. I ended up buying wire in a metal jacket and then attached a plug to one end and plugged it in. I was going to hard wire and use a switch and really couldn't justify the extra work. I haven't tried throttling down the flow with the valve and am not sure I need to but it's an option that is there.