cheap water heater idea, need input.

[bftank]

i had a thought while looking through some posts.

when we camp, we take a tabletop propane grille with us. after seeing the homemade water heater that uses the engines coolant, i wondered if you could use a truck heater core, placed on the propane grille and covered to accomplish the same thing without having to run the vehicle.

has anybody tried this?

thoughts

i think the core would need extensions soldered on so as to not melt the hose. or use silicon. then some heater hose and a pump to move the water.


grill and '89 suburban rear heater core

 

[ntsqd]

The heater core is soft-soldered together so you'll need to be careful of that. I would suggest immersing it in water.

 

[jesusgatos]

You can get brand new military surplus fuel-fired coolant heaters that put out 30,000BTU's for under $100ea. They're multi-fuel (will burn gasoline, diesel, kerosene, white gas, etc.) and self-contained. You'll need a fuel pump and a water-pump if you can't depend on convection to circulate the coolant.

 

[kmaser]

Where can you get the coolant heaters ?

kurtis

 

[jesusgatos]

Here's a link to a thread on steelsoldiers about them. You'll find a lot more info on that site if you search for 'coolant' and 'heater'. They pop-up on ebay pretty regularly.

 

[jesusgatos]

I've got two of them, but I haven't installed/used them yet so I can't tell you much about them as far as performance goes. But I'm going to play around with them, and if they work well, I might just use them as the primary heaters for my motorhome and leave out the propane-fired tankless water heaters that I was planning on using. Would really simplify things.

 

[thebrassnuckles]

I was just thinking of something like this.

I had an idea to use an Eccotemp L5 for the heat source, since I am contemplating picking one up for a hot water shower.

you could get some kind of valve set up that will do either shower or heater, or both. A new heater core on Ebay is about 30 bucks, or I bet you could pick up a used heater off an old car (50's-60's) theose things put out some heat, run the output hose from the shower to the core inlet, the core outlet to either the water source, or run it as a closed loop system straight to the pump and into the shower.

I think someone could get that set up running for cheap.

I have a rear heater in my 4runner that I may pull off the engine coolant and run it off the shower system if i do it.