Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Tubby

So, tubby the boiler. I first spotted him standing in the yard of the local LPG supplier. A wood fired boiler as I could tell by the belly on the front as I drove by on the way back from one of the many thousands of trips to the local train station. I spent a few hours putting him back together having found no fatal flaws, then more hours welding up a chimney cowl for the top (one of the non fatal flaws, this had rusted clean away). Then more hours making a hole in the cast iron door and making a bezel to hold in a window.
I had no idea how well the thing would work, but imagined it heating water to cycle naturally through the twin of the big stainless steal solar heater panel on the left here. That twin was the casualty of my first fire up. The mite of wood I put in brought the thing to a boil and it wanted to make steam rather than cycle water, so it did that and began spouting all the water out of the panel through convenient holes it made as it forced the pressure up. It also found it amusing to force water up out of the reservoir at the head of the system. I was forced to add to the confusion by stuffing a hose up into the firebox and quenching the inner fires, made wonderful billows of steam.
In version two I added a circulator pump visible on the floor to the left of tubby. I also added another coils of copper pipe from the back of a fridge I think. Up high on the right. This worked much better, but the boiler still managed to get up to 90 degrees in no time at all.
Version three saw the addition of yet another coil of pipe added to the system, this time housed over the front of an old kitchen stove hood extractor fan. This has three level settings and sucks the heat out of the vaned coil to blow it back into the room.
That got me to a much better place with the return temperature down at a level near the 50 degrees C that it is rated for, and I am a lot happier in the shop doing tasks that require little physical exertion now that it is a little more cozy.