Home Heating System
Have you ever wondered why you have two heating systems in your
home...one for air and one for water? Maybe they could, or
should, be combined into one simpler system that performs both tasks.
Your regular warm air furnace turns on and off at indeterminate
intervals, making it unsuitable for heating water for your home, but
your home water heating system is thermostatically controlled and
maintains water at a relatively constant temperature 24 hours per
day. This seems to make it a natural source of air heating energy
as well as for it's original task of providing hot water.
If you are going to use the water heating system for both heated air
and hot water, then you cannot use the non-pressurized
system described elsewhere in this web page. Your system must
be pressurized and connected to the hot water heater in a way that will
provide flow through the heat exchanger that heats your air. The
heat exchanger itself must be capable of withstanding the pressure that
is present in your water system and the various components must be
connected and positioned in a way that supports convection flow of hot
water from the water heater through the heat exchanger and back to the
water heater again.
At present you may not be able to actually purchase a heat exchanger or
radiator unit that will meet your needs. The closest thing
available may be either the A-Coils from a home air conditioning unit
or the similar unit from an automotive air conditioner. These
operate at up to 300 PSI pressure and thus might be able to withstand
the pressure inside your water system. The problem with these
units is that while they usually have a 3/4 inch inlet connection, the
outlet may be as small as 1/4 inch, which is inadequate for our
purposes. In order to use one of these units for your heat
exchanger you will have to remove or cap off the small outlet and
replace it with a suitably large plumbing connection. Since each
unit may be slightly different, I will leave it up to you and your
plumber as to how this might be accomplished.