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Author Topic: Homemade "Tank-in-Tank" OWB-Ozarks Hillbilly Edition  (Read 51824 times)

Wood Nutt

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Re: Homemade "Tank-in-Tank" OWB-Ozarks Hillbilly Edition
« Reply #45 on: February 16, 2014, 09:05:32 PM »

Softened water still has a lot of suspended solids in it even after softening.  Its an ion exchange if I remember correctly and the softening process only substitutes the softening material (salt?) with the lime that probably makes it hard.

If you are close enough to a bigger town (Joplin?) that has a public water system, many post their treated water samples on-line and the municipal stuff is treated enough that it is good for boiler fill water.  I hauled my water from town in a 225 gallon agriculture tank, chained it to the front of my dump bed trailer (so it would not slide back), pulled the trailer next to the stove and lifted the hoist and put the tank about 8 feet in the air.  I then let gravity flow the water into the stove.  Since you are in the construction business, you probably know someone with a dump bed trailer I assume.  The city water would be a lot less than distilled!

Good luck and BTW, the stove looks great.
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skorpyd

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Re: Homemade "Tank-in-Tank" OWB-Ozarks Hillbilly Edition
« Reply #46 on: February 17, 2014, 03:25:30 AM »

Looking real good,  glad to hear you are about ready to fire it up.

My well water is pretty bad with a lot of iron and lime in it.   I used it just so I could get it going without much hassle.

I plan on draining it in the off season and collecting rain water to fill for next year.

I hope you get it going soon so that you can use the end of this season to figure out if any adjustments are needed.
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hondaracer2oo4

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Re: Homemade "Tank-in-Tank" OWB-Ozarks Hillbilly Edition
« Reply #47 on: February 17, 2014, 07:25:12 AM »

For anyone out there that is curious how a water softener works it is like this. Water is passed through a resin bed which is located in the fiberglass tank of the water softener unit. As water passes through this resin bed the minerals in the water including up to 10 ppm iron are attracted to the resin and attach themselves to the resin beads. Depending on how 'hard' your water is at some point your resin bed will become saturated with minerals and won't be able to collect any more. At this time you would perform a 'backwash' on the system. This is when the salt comes into play. The salt acts as a brine solution that rinses the mineral deposits off of the resin bed. This brine solution is then either dumped into your septic or more preferably into a drywell. After the resin bed has been backwashed it will now be clean of mineral deposits and be able to start softening the water once again. Resin beds do have to be replaced every so often depending on how bad your water is. The average I think is every 10 years the bed will need to be replaced. So the salt isn't actually pumped into the house, but trace amounts could be left on the resin bed after a backwash. I don't think that it would stick around for very long at all. The resin bed goes through a long rinse cycle after the brine solution.
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mlappin

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Re: Homemade "Tank-in-Tank" OWB-Ozarks Hillbilly Edition
« Reply #48 on: February 17, 2014, 11:49:07 PM »

I had never seen those CB softener cartridges before, interesting, thanks for posting that.

Looks like they are about $150, that is just about exactly what my 180 gallons of distilled water is going to cost.  I have a 40 gallon plastic barrel, going to pour the 5 gal containers of dist water into it and use a little electric transfer pump to get it into my boiler.

Try this instead, 50 bucks for the unit with two cartridges.

http://www.woodboilersolutions.com/pro/cart/product.cfm?memberid=1926&detailid=1851&startrow=1&maxrows=100&productid=119

The company that handles the softener unit also highly recommends soft water if it's available.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2014, 11:50:51 PM by mlappin »
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WoodMOJoe

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Re: Homemade "Tank-in-Tank" OWB-Ozarks Hillbilly Edition
« Reply #49 on: February 18, 2014, 07:29:02 PM »

Thanks to all for the kudos and info.

Now considering getting a small (50-100 gpd) 4 or 5-stage reverse osmosis system to fill the boiler tank with.  There are a few RO systems like this in the $175-$250 range.  I have a yard hydrant about 25 feet from the boiler, could plumb the RO system in temporarily and top the tank off.  Then could use it for topoffs and lend it to my buddy when he fills his system up.

We have a few days in the 50s or 60s now, and the old homemade FHA rig has kept us warm for the last few years, so no rush... ;)
« Last Edit: February 18, 2014, 08:07:33 PM by WoodMOJoe »
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Sprinter

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Re: Homemade "Tank-in-Tank" OWB-Ozarks Hillbilly Edition
« Reply #50 on: February 21, 2014, 07:40:33 AM »

Inline filters, 1/4"-1/2" sizes, just have to fit some hose fittings. RO is about a 10:1 ratio. Takes 10 gal to make one RO gallon. Just as long as your aware. Condition of well water will dictate the exact ratio. Those Zero water pitchers actually do pretty good, but no matter how you filter its gonna take just a little extra time...
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WoodMOJoe

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Re: Homemade "Tank-in-Tank" OWB-Ozarks Hillbilly Edition
« Reply #51 on: February 22, 2014, 01:45:44 PM »

...RO is about a 10:1 ratio. Takes 10 gal to make one RO gallon...

I did not know that.  Does that mean there is a port for the "waste" water? 

Like if I hook the inlet of the RO filtering system to my hose bib, and the output to my boiler fill pipe and run approximately 200 gallons of treated water into my water jacket...there will be 2000 gallons of "waste" water that will be discharged out of another port on the RO system?

The system I gotis 5 stages and is rated at 100 gal per day.
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Wood Nutt

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Re: Homemade "Tank-in-Tank" OWB-Ozarks Hillbilly Edition
« Reply #52 on: February 23, 2014, 10:53:42 AM »

Yes, there is a waste port on the RO systems.  The system I have hooked up in my house for drinking water and to the ice maker claims about 4-5 gallons wasted per gallon of RO water produced.

The way it was explained to me, the RO membrane filters the stuff out and the large amount of waste is used to flush the membrane.

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WoodMOJoe

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Re: Homemade "Tank-in-Tank" OWB-Ozarks Hillbilly Edition
« Reply #53 on: February 23, 2014, 01:51:20 PM »

Thanks for that info Wood Nutt, did not know that.   :thumbup:

I should have my RO system next week, and will be filling my boiler soon after.  Hoping to just run the new system enough to work the kinks out this spring, then have it 100% ready to go next fall. 

The old homemade FHA rig has paid for itself about 4 times over just this winter...and it's on it's 4th year!
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Rstory

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Re: Homemade "Tank-in-Tank" OWB-Ozarks Hillbilly Edition
« Reply #54 on: February 27, 2014, 06:03:40 AM »

If you had it to do over. Would you have grates & ash door
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mlappin

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Re: Homemade "Tank-in-Tank" OWB-Ozarks Hillbilly Edition
« Reply #55 on: February 27, 2014, 06:24:27 AM »

Thanks to all for the kudos and info.

Now considering getting a small (50-100 gpd) 4 or 5-stage reverse osmosis system to fill the boiler tank with.  There are a few RO systems like this in the $175-$250 range.  I have a yard hydrant about 25 feet from the boiler, could plumb the RO system in temporarily and top the tank off.  Then could use it for topoffs and lend it to my buddy when he fills his system up.

We have a few days in the 50s or 60s now, and the old homemade FHA rig has kept us warm for the last few years, so no rush... ;)

Not sure which manufacturer I seen it from but they said NOT to use water from a reverse osmosis system to fill the boiler. Not sure why.
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WoodMOJoe

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Re: Homemade "Tank-in-Tank" OWB-Ozarks Hillbilly Edition
« Reply #56 on: February 27, 2014, 07:07:11 AM »

If you had it to do over. Would you have grates & ash door

Since I haven't even fired mine up yet that is hard to answer, but at the time I built mine I didn't want to deal with the extra work required to produce ash door and grate.

There are a lot of good-performing factory-built units that don't have them, that was my thought.
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WoodMOJoe

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Re: Homemade "Tank-in-Tank" OWB-Ozarks Hillbilly Edition
« Reply #57 on: February 27, 2014, 07:12:31 AM »

Thanks to all for the kudos and info.

Now considering getting a small (50-100 gpd) 4 or 5-stage reverse osmosis system to fill the boiler tank with.  There are a few RO systems like this in the $175-$250 range.  I have a yard hydrant about 25 feet from the boiler, could plumb the RO system in temporarily and top the tank off.  Then could use it for topoffs and lend it to my buddy when he fills his system up.

We have a few days in the 50s or 60s now, and the old homemade FHA rig has kept us warm for the last few years, so no rush... ;)

Not sure which manufacturer I seen it from but they said NOT to use water from a reverse osmosis system to fill the boiler. Not sure why.

I have never seen anything like that but it is possible.  There is a lot of info on the 'net that details the advantages of using RO water in boilers, but most of it is specific to pressurized systems.

Our water here is exceptionally hard, we have 2 limestone quarries within 3 miles of our house.  Lots of limestone outcroppings on our 100 acre, it is everywhere.  Just hoping to get some more mileage out of our exchangers, hot water heaters die a fairly quick death around here on untreated water.
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Wood Nutt

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Re: Homemade "Tank-in-Tank" OWB-Ozarks Hillbilly Edition
« Reply #58 on: March 01, 2014, 08:04:08 PM »

The RO systems advise using all plastic line and fittings.  Apparently the system is so efficient at cleaning up the water, noting is in it and it starts bringing metals back into solution.  They don't advise using copper for RO but I did it originally.  I have now changed it out to Pex and looked at the copper and it was eroding it, but it took years to accomplish (10+).  That may be why there was one manufacturer not recommending it, maybe it will attack your copper, brass, and or steel in the system???
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mlappin

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Re: Homemade "Tank-in-Tank" OWB-Ozarks Hillbilly Edition
« Reply #59 on: March 01, 2014, 09:16:11 PM »

The RO systems advise using all plastic line and fittings.  Apparently the system is so efficient at cleaning up the water, noting is in it and it starts bringing metals back into solution.  They don't advise using copper for RO but I did it originally.  I have now changed it out to Pex and looked at the copper and it was eroding it, but it took years to accomplish (10+).  That may be why there was one manufacturer not recommending it, maybe it will attack your copper, brass, and or steel in the system???

Wonder if in "normal" water the minerals or trace metals act as the sacrificial material much like an anode rod in a water heater?
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