Water Heater

[kmccune]

Anybody ever hear of a "Bucket a day" coal fired water heater? supposedly took a coal bucket a day to keep the hot water going, it was basically a waterjacket with a fire box in it with a flue pipe out the top.Worked pretty good in conjunction with a water storage tank-Kevin

[1stmate]

I dunno Kevin- sounds like it could get kinda 'splody on you if you weren't careful!

[kmccune]

The old heater served many years in a hunting camp near where I live and I would imagine things could get pretty spectacular if the pressure relief malfunctioned.
1stmate did you ever see the pretty wood fired water heaters, with the builtin firebox-had the literature for these things one time -dont know if they are still produced or not.
Looked at a friends 750 gal, 3 zone outside furnace last evening.It is new and very effiecent supposedly takes less wood then a Papa Bear Fisher stove-talk about capacity it will heat his log home, combo office and garage and hot tub(think its a Hardy)-Kevin

[randallhilton]

Anybody ever hear of a "Bucket a day" coal fired water heater? supposedly took a coal bucket a day to keep the hot water going, it was basically a waterjacket with a fire box in it with a flue pipe out the top.Worked pretty good in conjunction with a water storage tank-Kevin

A bucket of coal sounds like a lot to me. You might consider sunshine power with a fuel gas booster.

On a similar note -- A few years back I spent some time in a mountain community in Mexico (well off the tourist track). We stayed in a hotel - one bathroom per floor. If we wanted a hot shower, we had to holler downstairs to the proprietor. She would stoke some wood under the water heater, slosh on some kerosene and light it off.

The water heater was outdoors, up against a brick wall. It was simply a gas fired water heater tank with the burner and outside jacket removed. It was sitting on some concrete blocks with the fire wood underneath. What a sight! :o

[kmccune]

Well a coal bucket is not very large-maybe 20-30 lbs of coal-Kevin(in the coal country would be very economical)

[DiggerDirect]

Hi Kevin, I just located one of these heaters, guess they were called several different things depending on where your at, folks hereabouts called them a 'shovel a day' stove. I'm still studying how I can adapt it to my homestead here in upstate ny. Coal isn't real handy in these parts, can be had but not the cheapest thing, small firebox but I'm thinking of burning wood in it same as my main stove/heat source. I'll post a picture of it below. I've since seen quite a few pictures of these, different writing but all seem to look similar in shape.
Al
http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r247/diggerdirect/skippy/general/Ideal65C.jpg

[NCLee]

Interesting!!!! Thanks for sharing the pix.

I've never seen or heard of one of these.

Learn something new everyday here. :)

Lee

[jott]

My grandfather has been using one for several years now, he has an oil burner with hot water heat. He just plumed it up to the oil burner so it works on a thermo siphon. As long as the outside temp is high 30s or higher the oil burner never runs. It has saved him a lot on oil. But in PA coal is cheap and easy to come by. He uses 5 gal buckets for the coal it lasts about 2-3 days, unless it is really cold. Next time I talk to him I will ask him how much coal he uses in a winter.