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By bcamrd
#13575
I have a hot water heating system. The furnace heats the water in the small expansion tank, which goes thru pipes along the baseboards to heat the rooms. This same system also supplies the hot water to showers and sinks. In the cold of winter, average burning about 6 gals of oil per day to take care of these needs, and with ever increasing cost of oil, this gets expensive. My idea is that like one of these small electric immersion things that can put in a cup of water to heat it up. Could something on a large scale, some type of heat probe be inserted into the expansion tank of the heating system. After the furnace has heated the water sufficently, this item, powered by electricity, could then keep the water at the needed temperature, without having to use the furnace again, therefore saving the cost of burning oil. Could this implement be thermostaticaly controled, so that as water cooled, it automaticaly came on to bring water back up to the temperature needed ?

Reward: To get this, and needed accessories, and installation for free, and/or to be used as a test market for such item.
By Doug Brown
#14029
Include super insulation on the tank and hot water lines. Then If both electricity and oil are expensive, use electric to maintain the heat, but when the water temperature begins to fall rapidly the electric heat switches off and oil burner comes on. The advantage is the reduced consumption of oil, and nominal
use of electric load. The flash heaters I know about are Natural gas or Electric. Another part of the
idea might be to use a heat exchanger by using hot waste water to preheat incoming cold water to
the hot water system. Your idea depends on the relative costs of the various fuels you would be using.
Also note that if you went all electric the peak demand might raise your energy cost higher than
oil costs.
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