Two mornings ago I woke up a little chilly, even though I was sleeping in a hoody under a quilt…
And thought, okay, maybe it’s time to fire up the bedroom heater.
But then I looked at the forecast, which says this little cold snap is just a blip, and decided to give it another week.
It is about time to decommission my hillbilly water heater for the winter, though.
…because even on sunny days it’s not doing much. I could get more time out of it by closing the glass cover on the heat exchanger box, but once you do that it’s damn near impossible to open again and not really worth the bother. My only question is whether I just turn off the water pressure, or do what I did last autumn and pull the hoses out of the box, disconnect them and lay them on a hillside to drain. That’s not much work but putting them back together and into the box in the spring is a pain in the ass. I probably will though, because if I just leave it for a couple of years the scaling inside the hoses makes the whole thing pretty much useless all season.
When D&L replaced their wood pellet heater with a propane burner last month, they were left with about 20 sacks of pellets in stock and nothing to do with them but let them keep taking up garage space. Happily they were able to find a buyer, who came and got them last week…
…which opened up a whole corner of their big garage for other uses. She moved her smoking spot there, and now there’s all this room in what used to be a pretty cramped spot. Yet another unmentioned disadvantage of pellet stoves: You’ve got to stock a lot of fuel and it absolutely positively must never get wet. Which takes up a lot of indoor space.
Finally…
Late last year the upper on one of my winter boots cracked away from the sole, which wasn’t really bad news. They were comfortable and warm enough in most weathers but too low for slogging through snow. So I finally had an excuse to replace them. Hurray for materialism!
Hey Joel. I’m sure you thought of this, but maybe just disconnect both ends of your water heater pipe/ tubing and blow it out? If you don’t have an air compressor, you could probably buy a portable compressor air tank and fill it up at a neighbor’s house who has a compressor (or just get a little pancake compressor- now that you have SS money, they aren’t that expensive and are a lot cheaper than a fall off a ladder). There can’t be that much volume in a few dozen feet, or less, of tubing.
“Hurray for materialism!” Hurray for having enough change in your pocket to indulge in a little retail therapy! Having a steady income stream sure does make budgeting for such purchases a lot easier.
I hope you’re feeling good and continue to feel better. It’s so nice to read your posts.
RE: “blowing out the water heater pipe” – low pressure would work, so a shop vac would do.
As far as cleaning out the scale, I’m thinking a soft plug (a tapered rubber plug, about 1/3 size of the pipe ID) with a long string through it, forced through a “lightly slightly scaled-up pipe” by water pressure, then use the string to pull a bore brush (or flanged scraper – think “tapered” (or “stepped”) flanges, like a Chrstmas tree) through.
Putting the glass back on the Hillbilly Heater (HH) would be too much in the summer, but being able to easily restore the glass cover mght offer another month of use in each spring and fall. Hinged, maybe? Or, cut the glass into thirds (might halves work?) and stack them during summer, putting them back in spring & fall; summer use with 2/3 uncovered might work, reverse to 2/3 covered during late spring & fall, completely covered for early spring and fall, with “low pressure blow-out” saved for impending winter. 3 panels or 4? Someone, somewhere, must have experimented with this.
Isopropyl alcohol freezes at -129F, diluting with H2O raises the freezing temp (I don’t have the tables handy, but I do remember that 50/50 IPA and water freezes at -5F). I wouldn’t do it if the HH were used for potable water, but a 5-minute long spring flush should get the IPA concentration below 1% (although scale inside the pipe would absorb some IPA, and release it slowly, but for non-potable use a couple percent shouldn’t be a problem).
You’d lose some of the gravity-feed feature, but moving the HH to a rack like the solar panels sit on would make it accessible from ground level. Maybe hinge the top end at 7-8 feet, pin the bottom end at 5-6 feet (to maintain solar angle), allowing the bottom to hinge down to 2-3 feet for cleaning.
Worst comes to worst winter heat-wise, at least you have large dog. Ok, subobtimal hygiene, but if it’s cold enough he won’t mind…