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Author Topic: Building water to air unit heater  (Read 3924 times)

Keffer

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Building water to air unit heater
« on: February 12, 2012, 09:04:40 PM »
I have a 40x60 shop with 1/2" insulation in SE Tennessee. I would like to build a water to air heater with thermostat. Any ideas?  I've been told AC condensers will work. Any ideas on how to make this work would be great.
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Bull

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Re: Building water to air unit heater
« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2012, 09:20:37 PM »
You can run your OWB through an old car radiator and put a blower behind it wired to an electric baseboard heater thermostat.
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Keffer

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Re: Building water to air unit heater
« Reply #2 on: February 12, 2012, 09:35:38 PM »
How large a radiator do you think I'll need? Should I have the radiator and fan inclosed so that all the air goes threw the radiator? 
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Bull

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Re: Building water to air unit heater
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2012, 09:43:18 PM »
Yes you should. It would be best to use a water to air heat exchanger but if you have an old car radiator it would work.
Some one will be by soon to let you know per your sizes what btu your water to air heat ex you would need to buy.
Oh welcome to the site.................
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abarton

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Re: Building water to air unit heater
« Reply #4 on: February 13, 2012, 06:40:43 PM »
If your nifty with a torch and hard solder and have plenty of time you can make one any size you want. just slice the coil into the size slab you want and remove an inch or so of the aluminum fins to expose the copper tubes. hold a piece of 3/4 copper against the ends to transfer the locations of the stubs drill all the little holes and solder the two together. repeat for the other side and you have a homemade water coil.  but if it were me i would shop in the range of a 150k-200k sized coil or find some old car radiators experiment and let us know how it turns out. i always wanted to know myself about that
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"I could have saved a fortune when I built my house if only I had not installed any light switches but instead straight wired all the lights. I'm the only one that realizes they also turn off"

BoilerHouse

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Re: Building water to air unit heater
« Reply #5 on: February 13, 2012, 07:27:54 PM »
I used a water to air hx and hooked up a fan behind it to blow the heat through.  The fan is controlled from a thermostat, wired in series.  Everything is 120 Volt. 

Here is a discussion in which one member had success using a condenser coil.

http://outdoorwoodfurnaceinfo.com/forum/index.php?topic=1600.msg13821#msg13821
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