open fire hot water setup

[Tirediron]

In an emergency situation, it is possible to transfer heat from an outdoor fire to an indoor space using a thermo-siphon water coil or if you have the resources antifreeze coil, a coil of copper tubing hooked to automotive heater hose will bring a 55 gallon barrel of water to a boil in a short period. as long as there is a few feet of elevation from the bottom of the barrel and the bottom of the coil, the fluid will circulate. this may be a far better option for people than a wood stove install, the coil would be even better inside of a stove, and because the stove would be out of doors a simple home built stove would be fine. as said for emergency situations. the above system needs to be open to atmosphere to be safe, don't want steam pressure to build up

 

[viking]

I've mentioned before that my grandmother had a wood cook stove that had a water coil in the fire box and behind the stove was a galvanized 55 gallon water tank that was connected to the fire box coil, the tank was heated by convection and it didn't take long to get hot, no pump was necessary and it never got to the point of steam temps, it was a simple system that worked great.

 

[The Lazy L]

...it is possible to transfer heat from an outdoor fire to an indoor space using a thermo-siphon water coil ...

Possible? Yes. Our first house had coal fired boiler that had been converted to oil. There was no circulating pump to move the boiler hot water though out the house's cast iron radiators. It relied on the principle that hot water rises and cold water falls. Main floor wasn't too bad, our upstairs bedroom window would be covered with inside ice during the winter. As I recall the distribution piping hand smaller pipes transporting the hot water and larger pipes returning the colder water back to the boiler.

Amazing difference (to heating the house and the lower fuel oil consumption) it made when I installed a circulating pump.

I said all that to say this. Suggest you plan your system for thermo-siphon with the heat source lower then the hot water storage. Add a small solar powered pump to increase the efficiency. If/when pump fails you still have the inefficient thermo-siphon method to fall back on.

 

[Tirediron]

We had the above described unit , 5/8 OD copper tube, 5/8 id heater hose, and it was plumbed into a 55 gallon drum on top of a camperized bus. we had to add a drum of cold water to make our shower usefull, the elevation difference was about to feet.
A circulation pump would be really nice, but a flat black drum would radiate a lot of heat, and the hotter the drum the more btu.s it would release.