This as a really useful video. It shows there is about 500w of waste heat being lost out of the exhaust and if anyone wants to capture this to heat water, say in an RV, they had better keep the exhaust tube length reasonably short to minimise back pressure and CO production and should make sure there is a continual fall in the pipe so that water produced by combustion and any tar drains straight out.
Yeah.... I think the exhaust losses are likely up around 750W, but the heat loss from the uninsulated water means that it is losing a lot of wattage to the surrounding air. Shorter or larger tubing is a must to keep CO reasonable.
I'm glad you didn't delete. Always learn something even if that's not to do it again. That said I think the thermal battery idea is great for static situations, the fact the energy is essentially free makes it even better. I have a short length, approx 1 m, of exhaust in a metal box cooled with computer fans which works great. I'll take a thermal pic next time it's running to show the temp difference across the length.
Thanks for the comment and support. I think the fan idea like you have, or with a exchanger is a better idea. I'm not sure if I will have time to do it this year, but I would like to make a similar setup.
Hi , first thank you for all your experiements... I'm trying to figure out a way I could use the exhaust heat to warm up my preston in my truck in winter ... so heating the cab and heating the engine both at the same time... Have you tried this experiement ? thanks!
I have not done this, but this is originally what these heaters were used for... except they weren't air heaters, they were coolant heaters. I have not done it, but others have used EGR coolers on their exhaust to heat water. I personally do not think that this would be ideal for heating a vehicle cooling system. The issue is that the exhaust is likely less than 1kw of energy of you are 100% efficient.
@@loweredexpectations4927 I have not done any of this in a vehicle but only in a shop, but I am thinking of a conventional car heater core in front of the diesel heater outlet to capture most of the heat and put it into the coolant instead of the air. Then, in addition use an EGR cooler to capture the exhaust heat from the diesel heater. Both of those heat exchangers should capture a significant portion of the heat output from the diesel heater. The coolant can then be pumped into the engine or used to heat other parts of the vehicle like an RV. In my RV we have three heaters that use engine coolant to heat the RV cabin and they work very well. I don't see why those heaters could not be connected to a diesel heater as well as the engine. Note, for my shop heater I used a pressure relief valve from a hot water tank and also used a coolant expansion tank placed higher up to always make sure that all the lines were filled with coolant.
Wow I can’t believe you did it before me. I’m jealous 😅. . “That is a lot of condensation!” I thought oh no it can't be 🤣!!! You got my mental telegraph. This is the exact setup I had in mind except the exhaust length. I almost bought a black tote but to camouflage in nicely with the window wall, I bought a semitransparent white one. I totally get your frustrations. Thank you so much for doing the experiment, validating and endorsing the concept. For experimental purpose, the leak is inevitable if you have multiple pipes and joints. I thought you was going to first try with just one pipe half a loop / gentle curve shape knowing that the bends would introduce elevated CO. If the exhaust goes outside, 1000ppm is of no issue. It’s alright. It doesn’t need to be perfect. You have successfully demonstrated the concept to practice. The idea alone is worth spreading. You went far beyond that. From here people will refine upon your result; insulate the container if they want hotter than 40°C, hot water cylinder, BPHE, shorten exhaust length, bigger exhaust pipe diameter, use silicone exhaust coupler (to prevent leak), etc. The efficiency seems 100% thank to the long pipe I guess. That’s an incredible result. Look at that steam coming out nicely 😮. I could even feel the heat 🔥from here. Heating power turned out 0.6-0.7kW as expected at highest setting. It won’t reach to the boiling point due to the factors you mentioned but that’s not the point. The point is to capture the exhaust heat as much as possible, as cheap and easy as possible so people with no special tool can repeat. 40°C is more than enough for a hot bath, warm water for cleaning, etc. 10°C per hour increase is not bad at all given your climate, by the time you feel warmed up, you can have a nice hot bath. I never aim to make a cup of tea with it. I’ll just use a kettle for that. Ouch take 32!!! 😅😹
Great minds think alike! I had planned on running this test dry first and then wet... I also wanted to just loop it in a 5 gallon pail to see what would happen... but the season is short and I was running out for time for all of the experiments, so I decided to do this one. If your intention is to heat the water, then you want to insulate it. If your intentions are to capture as much heat from the water as possible, you are better off leaving it open and uninsulated. Water at 20C is going to be much more efficient at capturing energy than 40 or 50 C water. I was also blown away at the efficiency ! 3C over water temp.... That being said, when the water temp was at 40C, the exhaust temp was 43C (about) .... If you try to argue with physics, you lose every time, haha. Haha... yes... 32 attempts at one clip ! It's not that uncommon. I get distracted pretty easily !
Great minds!! 😅Yes I intend to experiment a dedicated water heating project after this one. I will submerge the heater body / radiator part and the exhaust totally in water absorbing all the heat produced by the heater to heat the water. Atm it is at a concept stage but like this one I’ll think through it. That will take absolutely no time to boil a bath. Electricity and everything else being so expensive, I’m afraid this will be the only viable option in the future before they ban it, they will! No you can’t argue with physics. If you think the temps will add up like apples and oranges you find that they don’t, for example, if you mix two cups of water at 50°C, the mixture doesn’t end up at 100°C! On the other hand if you turn on a heater and turn on another heater the heat generated by both add up! In the first case, no external energy is going into the water but in the latter case, an extra 100% energy is going into the room. Still blown away. The specific heat of water is so great it only leaves +3C at the exhaust, of course in “relative sense”. It will boil water if the tank is insulated like in a hot water cylinder. The exhaust temperature of 290-300°C can easily lend 100°C to water. 😅 Hat’s off and thank you very much again for your persistence, expertise and humbleness. 🙏@@loweredexpectations4927
@@examplerkey I really want to do that as well. The submerging thing... I think it will be quite challenging ... I haven't put a lot if thought into it yet... but I can see it being tricky. Maybe if you can stand the heater on end with the heat outlet side pointing down. Challenging, but rewarding. Thanks for the support and enjoy your tinkering ! ... Will you be posting videos ?
It will have to start with running the heater upright on the heat exchanger and see if it can burn the fuel reliably without any leak or soot build up inside. If it passes this test, then the heater can be installed upright in this way on top of the tote. 👍 If not, it will have to stand (held up) on the fan end with the heat exchanger going into the tote from the bottom via a circular metal plate with a hole for the heat exchanger in the middle. This can be in the form of an extended metal gasket or the heat exchanger part crudely siliconed to the plate for the experiment sake 😯. The idea is to submerge the heat exchanger in the water from any possible direction (top, side or bottom) and extract the heat that way ⬆➡⬇🙃🙂. It will be 6-7 times more heat from it compared with the exhaust, so maybe a small / medium pump will be needed to circulate the water every now and then on timer. Whether or not the exhaust also goes through the water is an option limited only by the time and other constraint of the experiment. Yes I will post it after I finish.@@loweredexpectations4927
@@examplerkey Yeah... that's the way I "plan" things also... whatever works , haha. It will be so much easier if the heater runs with the inlet fan pointing straight up ... hopefully ! I'm sure there are options to slow or stop the heater depending on water temperature. I've been wanting to do something like this for a while now, but it's all a matter of how much time I have and where I want to focust that time. Good luck !
Have you thought about using a water to air heat exchanger to use the exhaust gas running through the exchange and then use a fan blowing across the fins to heat the air for extra heating.
Yeah, I've been wanting to do something like that for quite some time... on the list of many things to do, haha. I have seen people doing this with EGR coolers... I already had the exhaust tubing for a previous test / experiment, so it didn't cost me anything to throw it together.
@@loweredexpectations4927 I have seen a bunch of videos on the EGR cooler but than you have to deal with a pump, coolant, and over flow tank. With the heat exchanger you only have the exhaust in the exchange tubes and an electric fan. I found the perfect one on Amazon but UA-cam won't let you post links in the comment section. Try searching this below. Water to Air Heat Exchanger 12x12 with 1‘’ Copper Ports for Outdoor Wood Furnaces, Residential Heating and Cooling, and Forced Air Heating
One bend with large radius would not limit exhaust flow this much, and 50cm of tubing submerged in water would still recover a lot of heat. Also, EGR cooler would be worth a try, it's water jacket can be removed to get it's heat output directly to container with no pump
One bend would be much better for flow. 50CM would collect some heat, but the exhaust had a 3C higher temp than the water, so anything shorter would be less effective. How much less effective ... I have no idea, haha. I really want to play with an EGR cooler at some point... it is on my long list of things to do.
If you revisit this experiment in any capacity. I think you will have better luck. Using roughly half the exhaust pipe. However this time run copper tube around the exhaust pipe (Trying different windings ect... Maybe run the warm water through radiators. You probably can make 2 months plus worth of videos or more. Trying different combinations of radiators you find at the dump. Even if you bought a few of Amazon. They are not terrible expensive. You can even make your own (EGR manifolds) and test them. EGR exhaust gas recycler. Your options are practically endless. When it comes to reclaiming lost energy from these heaters. Good luck. I hope you tackle this project.
I would love to revisit this at some point and see how little copper pipe it would take to make the system efficient. There are many ways to make this better and it was of the videos that I was least pleased with.
Now you have a pretty good idea of the good and bad of the heaters. Any thoughts of having a go at designing one of these from the ground up? Maybe a collaboration with a few who are as into it as much as you.
That is an interesting idea, and I have considered it. I have been in the process of building a CNC milling machine, but have had to keep my projects fairly small because of some ... life events. I'm going through a separation and may have to move soon... So a LOT of stuff has been put on hold.
@@loweredexpectations4927 Ahh... Went down the self build CNC route myself. Got into Fusion 360 for design and used Arduino to drive Nema 17. Wood metal construction using din rail and 17mm bearings. All that sends you on a whole world of discovery. Carved wood and acrylic with it. All now disassembled and will at some time have another go. As for you getting into designing your own heater. If you can, do it. Give the Chinese a run for their money. 👍
find a used waterheater .. remove the heating and zink anode .. turn a new lid.. get a 3m cupper pipe where exshaust can fit in to not over.. like water air can´t be blown without resistance.. so a bigger cu tube will be way more efficiant.. it is not the length but the surface of the tube..
Yes... that would work really well. There are lots of great ways to heat water, but I already had this exhaust tubing from another test, and the idea wasn't just to heat the water, but more to collect data and see about how much heat was lost out the exhaust and how well standard stainless tubing would capture the heat.
@@loweredexpectations4927 yes yes bro.. but on the other way you can Get higer temperatur.. .. let's say you turn the heater on in the morning IT will heat 100 200 300L water so you can bath ewery 2 Day.. or ewery Day Becaus of the insulation and bigger tubing.. adwice.. when you bend cupper Or aluminium .. fill tubing with fine sand.. then the tubing don't get flat at the bend Greetings from DENMARK.. love you'r idea.. just use a tube big enough you can Push / pull a duster truh to get the sood build up out of exshaust pipe/heater
I'm glad I waited until the end to comment this time, because I was thinking through most of the video that 1" coiled copper tubing would be a good leak proof way to go.
Always happy watch the videos, I'm happy you posted it. Sand my have been a bit less of a pain to work with. Looking forward to more waste oil videos could we see your new set up running on veg oil to see how it runs. 🙂
I do have some Veg oil... I was planning on running itin a standard chamber... but we will see what happens. I'm working on modifying my chamber to burn cleaner now, so maybe a veg oil test after that.
@@loweredexpectations4927 veg oil and diesel mix runs but causes a lot of soot on mine overtime and I get carbon build up on the flame initiation air hole
@@Coffeebean1482 When you run veg oil, are you just using a single tank to start and stop the heater ? I have had a few people insist that if you start on bure diesel, and shut down on diesel, you won't have issues.... I personally think most or all of them have never actually tried it and are just making stuff up. Veg oils have glycerine, and that is apparently the issue. Biodiesel is veg oil with this removed.
@@loweredexpectations4927 I just use a single tank. As I don't have a spare. I agree with you because the heater still gets up to temp on the mix so should burn any rubbish off but it doesn't seem to it slowly clogs up. But I think with your modified chamber it would burn well it has nothing to gunk up.
If you do come back to this using copper tubing, and if the temperature actually increases to a useful range, I'd like to see you add some thing to circulate the water and try to cook something sous vide style!
Thanks for the comment. I am almost 100% certain that the temp would not rise much more, or any more with this current water container. The stainless exhaust worked really well at putting heat into the water, as the temp difference between the water and exhaust was only about 3C Unfortunately, physics gets in the way of our fun, and as the water heats up, the exhaust can't heat it as efficiently. Meaning. Once the water reaches 40C, the exhaust coming out of the pipe will always be a minimum of 40C. Energy from 40C exhaust can not heat 40C water. You can heat a larger volume of water with a second or larger tub, but you can't reach a higher temperature, unfortunately. The only way to do this would be to have a very small tub, or to have it extremely well insulated.... or to use it like a shower, and heat water in real time.
@@loweredexpectations4927 I wonder if adding a heat pump to the contraption would be able to raise the temperature, but that's way beyond the scope of your experiment and probably not worth the cost unless you have access to an old air conditioner you can modify to run as a heat pump
I’ve got a 5kw heater in my garage that I have the exhaust piped into an old 100gallon propane tank. It then exits out the bottom And goes through the wall of the garage outside. With the size of the steel tank it does a pretty good job of dissipating the heat. I haven’t checked actual temps or CO on the exhaust but it’s just steam and condensation that drips out. I can totally understand getting burned out on a project. Sometimes you just gotta take a break and come back when you’re truly interested in it.
I had a 300L (45 gallon) oil drum last summer, and I wanted to keep it around to try what you have done, but I couldn't justify keeping it around as I dont' have the extra space, haha. Yeah... sometimes when a projet goes sideways, the best idea is to set it aside and come back to it at a later date.
Better to use a purpose made diesel water heater. Use a heat exchanger style water heater tank to limit the amount of water in circulation through the heater ( of course use a 50/50 glycol water mix)
@@gbear1005 Yes, if your objective is to heat water, then the water heat type is much better. The idea of this test is to capture lost heat energy, while using an air heater.
@@gbear1005 even diesel water heaters have exhaust heat that is wasted unless you have some type of exhaust heat recovery system. Straight water is actually more efficient at transferring heat than glycol. Though there are some benefits, like the corrosion resistance and obviously the freeze protection.
Haha... thanks... What happens is, I record 3 hours of footage of me explaining in detail the build process, and why I did it the way I did.... and then when it comes time to edit I'm like.... Well... just this part could be an hour long video, haha. I had actually considered turning just making that part into a video, but didn't think that would go over well for most people... I like how it turned out !
Hello my friend! Then someone should say that telepathy doesn't work! All I have to do is think of something and 3-4 days later, you make exactly the video I was thinking of! Thanks for that!
Even though you don't plan on doing this again, someone else might consider doing it. One important factor is to not allow the exhaust temperature drop below 180ºC/356ºF for very long as condensation in the exhaust can form and cause corrosion failure of the head exchanger. This is the same concept as the old steam locomotive boilers but at ambient pressures. Altrenatively, maybe the heater output air could be used to heat water instead of the room.
Thanks for your comment. The whole idea with this test is to capture as much heat energy as possible and purposely condense the exhaust. Altho the condensate is acidic it is only about the same PH as orange juice, and the exhaust tubing is 304 stainless (if you believe the chinese retailers) I suspect that mild steel would have a pretty short life in this environment, but 304 stainless is quite resistant to acid and oxidation. I'm not sure how aluminum or copper would fair though. Aluminum forms a protective oxide that usually protects it from corrosion, but the weak acid may be enough to remove the oxide layer and cause serious issues. If you are losing about 800w out the exhaust, and you can capture about 700W using this method, then it wouldn't take long for it to pay for itself. I am assuming that by "exchanger" you mean the exhaust heat capturing system, as you would never be able to cause water to condense in the actual heater exchanger.
The carbon monoxide is high because the exhaust is cold. Hot exhaust pipework helps to make the CO oxidise into carbon dioxide, also producing even more heat in the exhaust. You really need some kind of pre- oxidising chamber to burn off the carbon monoxide and obtain the extra heat from its combustion. I can't tell you how to do it.
Yeah... I suspected it is the cold exhaust and mentioned this in my previous exhaust video... however, I think this has more to do with the cool dense air being more resistant to flow... the reduced exhaust flow also causes less inlet air, and that makes CO. Perhapsy a catalytic converter... but you need to keep it hot for it to work.
You can get muffler putty or tape at Canadian Tire to fix any pinholes and also to seal the pipe connections. Also, I now add a capful of Kleen-flo diesel fuel treatment, that I also buy at CT, to the fuel tank to significantly reduce the carbon buildup in my heater and the amount of smoke produced (I no longer see that big cloud of smoke on start-up, for example). Since you are also burning waste oil which causes that carbon buildup I wonder if the diesel additive would make enough of a difference in carbon production to reduce the need to disassemble and clean your heater?
Thanks for the comment. The biggest issue with the pinholes is actually locating them. I sealed a few, and more kept appearing, haha. I have tried some additives in the past for waste oil. They do indeed help with carbon, but the ash build up is the real problem. That's cool that it works so well for you. I wonder if you heater is running rich ? It shouldn't really have carbon issues if it is running well. I have a Canadian company sending me a diesel additive to test... should be interesting.
As long as you only need 60 litres, then it's all good ! haha. Of course, if you were doing this and your goal was to heat the water, then insulating it would be highly beneficial.
Hot water cylinder coil (if you have such a thing in Canadia) could be a good ready made copper coil, maybe from a scrap yard or local plumber's recovery.
Yeah...Anything copper is going to be way better. I used this as I already had it and it is what most people will think of when they attempt something like this.
A shorter run of pipe through the water would allow the exhaust temperature to stay up and keep the water dried out of the pipe and you could also wrap it with the heavy to medium steel like an AC pipe or tube
Yeah... I think the downward slope is a better idea because you want to collect as much heat as possible. Keeping the exhaust hot will take care of the condensate problem, but you waste a lot of heat.
Wow not only was it a pain in the ass, but it took a bunch of time for little positive end result. Even just the time it took to film this was certainly a lot of work. Thanks for not just deleting all of this though! I do wonder if it is worth doing one of those finned heat exchangers for the exhaust. Maybe I'll explore that at some point.
I think it is worth it to use a heat exchanger... if you take your time, think it through and do it right, haha. A baseboard radiator, all metal car radiator or something like that, with the appropriate flow rate and a way for moisture to drain out, and you basically gain back about 700 watts .
@@loweredexpectations4927 Wow! I didn't think it would be that high. I figured it would help a little bit, but I am surprised it is that high. Maybe at some point I'll try a hydronic heating tube, or an all metal heater core.
Hello Joel, I don't know how you are going to use this hot water but I think that the system that I have set up produces a better result in fact, I heat 3 radiators on the circuit and I reach 50 degrees Celsius on the 3 after one hour of operation. I will make you a little video of the assembly soon but for the moment, you are doing a good job. Keep going
Thanks for the comment. The only real plan was to make a video to share some data with people, haha. More of an experiment for the sake of experimenting. If I were to do this for myself, I would be interested in capturing as much heat energy as possible, and not so much in heating up water. I was going to use a small water pump to circulate the water, perhaps through a radiator. I will probably come back to this idea at some point in the future, when I have more time to focus on it. I have seen your EGR cooler set up... very nice.
@@loweredexpectations4927 Thank you for the EGR but that's not what I was talking about, in fact, the heating is coupled to the heating system of the house but it can work independently to heat just the workshop I will show you that soon
I think there were a few factors, but the main thing is the bends in the pipe. I used 4.8 metres of pipe in a previous video and it word fine. Another thing that is likely happening, is that the cooler exhaust is more dense, and therefore causes more resistance to flow. When I did my last test, adding a new section of cold pipe would cause the CO to spike until it warmed up... then it would be okay. Similarly, when starting the heater from cold, it make a HUGE cloud of smoke and a LOT of CO, but then was fine once it warmed up.
Something else I think that I've noticed is to get good burns and no water build up in your pipe it should go downhill similar to a drop in a sewer line so that water doesn't stand
A all metal car heater matrix would probably be a cheap and easy option for this. I'm wondering if using oil instead of water would be a better way to go it would solve the evaporation problem and opens up many options of how to make use of the heat under floor heating sand battery etc. Why do you have to keep Quasar on a lead I've always let my cat's come and go as they please I have adopted every cat I've had and always go for the street wise independent type
Yeah... oil would solve the evaporation problem making the process more efficient. Megan is a Vet Tech and is very protective of Quasar. She gets to see a lot of cats that don't fair well because of running lose. I do often allow him to run free, but she does not approve.
It is not -only- due to the length of the exhaust, as I have another video using 4.8 M of tubing, and it worked fine for that test. CO was around 40 ppm. The problems here are likely caused by the number of bends in the tubing and the fact that the air in the pipe is cool, therefore dense and has more resistance.
The exhaust gasses were 8C when the water was 5C .... so 3C above water temp. As the temp of the water increases, the gasses would be stuck at a minimum of the water temperature.... SO when the water was up to 40C. the exhaust is likely around 43C, for example. The ability to transfer heat was extremely efficient...
I recon if you swapped to smooth walled ex pipe you'd get better flow and lower CO readings, not sure that would change much but less back pressure would be better 🤔
While the rig is set up it would be useful to know what length of immersed tube is really needed to extract most of the available heat - I guess less than you used. Perhaps check the heat of the tube at various distances from the input ?
Yeah... I used a little over 2.4M of exhaust, and the outlet temp was only 3C above water temp, so it was working very efficiently.... just not free flow enough. Yeah... if I would have checked along the length of tubing, I could pick a place where I was willing to give up X amount of heat. The only variable is the number of bends and now tight they are, as this will have an effect.
If you had used PH test strips you would have found the liquid exhaust condensate was very low PH. It is very understandable that your cheap corrugated exhaust tubing has corrosion holes in it from your previous exhaust heat recovery experiments. The more you cool the exhaust the worse the corrosion will be, example high efficiency condensing gas furnaces use PVC vent stacks. Glad you're trying ATF, also consider trying screw compressor oil but be careful with the synthetic version it can contain a lot of hard to remove emulsified water if recovered with an oil-water separator. If you repeat the water heating experiment, use an old ice chest.
Thanks for your comment. I tend to believe that the holes are there from poor manufacturing. I wouldn't totally rule corrosion out as a possibility, but I think this cheap tubing is made of 304 stainless and is pretty corrosion / acid resistant. Interesting... Screw compressor oil eh. There are so many different types of lubricants out there. The other day someone recommended HP printer oil ... I looked it up and my mind was blown. You know what... I had an old ice chest that was kinda rough, and I left it in the alley with a "free" sign on it... dang it, haha.
Please try using a radiator for pc cooling or a small transmission cooler radiator for either heating up water or transferring the energy similar to an outdoor wood furnace. Thanks for posting keep up the good work
Huh. I have 3 meters of exhaust and my CO is well below 50. I have a CO meter on the way, but on my CO alarm, if I trigger it by putting it in a bag with smoldering incense, then pull it out of the bag and put it in front of the exhaust, the number goes down to about 25 before the display shuts off. A meter and an alarm both use electrochemical sensors, so I'm confident the reading is valid. CO being from incomplete combustion, maybe switching from alpine to regular might improve that number, but I suspect something else is amiss. Anyway, I can understand being sick of a project, so onward and upward. Or downward.
Yeah... something wasn't quite right here from the very beginning. The only thing I can think is that the density of exhaust gasses are very high due to the condensing effect from cooling. The outlet temp was only 8C so all of the moisture was condensing. In the video where I tested the strait pipe, I had noted that the exhaust seemed to run with more CO after adding a cool section of pipe, and then the CO would come back to acceptable after the pipe warmed up. I may revisit this at some point.... but not for a while, haha.
I have proposal. If pipe is in water, it can't get over 100C. Using bigger diameter aluminum pipe in water box turned from bottom up in correct manner almost filling 50% of volume. This gives very big surface area and less turbulence and Al has way better heat transfer. So there must be adapter under water not to melt Al pipe. I am thinking about ventilation flexible 80mm Al hose. Then water buildup would not be a problem either. Idea: Maybe the water vapor at intake causes bad CO emissions?
Thanks for the comment. I think there may be some confusion. The reason it can't reach 100C is because the water is poorly insulated. My exhaust system was capturing almost all of the heat energy, as the exhaust gas temp was only 3C above the water temp. (5C water vs 8C exhaust) There is no more energy to capture. The heater is producing about 800 watts of waste heat out the exhaust. If you capture 100% of it and put it into the water temp will rise. However, the water is capable of dissipating heat into my garage at a variable wattage. When the water is cool, it can dissipate a small amount of heat, but the hotter it gets, the more watts of energy will be sucked out into heating the garage. The only way to avoid this is to perfectly insulate the water. Another issue, is that exhaust gasses that are 40C can not heat water that is 40C. If the water temp raises to 60C, for example, the coolest the exhaust gasses can be is 60C. To capture more heat you would need to lower the temp of the water or use a second container of water to also heat up. Aluminum and copper are WAY better and conducting heat, but the stainless is already bringing the temp down to a few degrees above water temp.
Yes... I really want to try an EGR cooler at some point. I did this as I had the pipe from another experiment, and wanted to see what would happen. Pretty efficient, but a PITA, haha.
Haha... I guess it depends on the size of the hot tub, and how hot you want it to be. Maybe a hot tub for Quasar. It looks like this was topping out at 40C and the surface area is pretty small. The larger the surface area, the more heat losses, so the cooler the water would be... I think you'd want to submerse the whole heater, haha.
Why did you use stainless steel? As I stated in a comment in your "Capturing Waste Heat - 5 Meters Of Stainless Exhaust - Will It Even Run ?" video from 3 weeks ago, copper has 20 times the thermal conductivity of stainless steel thus you could use FAR less tubing length for the same thermal extraction with the added benefit of it being SMOOTH inside giving a larger effective ID than the flexible stainless.
My plan was specifically to do a bunch of tests with this tubing to see what will and won't work. I'm not actually trying to design a setup to capture heat or to heat water. Copper is way better and would be a better choice, hands down. My assumption is that a LOT of people will attempt to use this stuff, because it is the right size, ships to your door from Amazon, bendable and what comes with the heater, so it is familiar.
Possibly it would have worked better and the water was heated faster with a copper coil but with a much larger diameter than the exhaust. And the water container should be in the shape of a barrel, having a small water evaporation surface taller and narrower so the copper spiral could easily eliminate the condensation that would occur. I suspect that the experiment started without prior planning.
Haha.. yeah. There wasn't a lot of planning, and I was using what I had laying around. While copper is a better conductor, the stainless was effectively removing almost all of the heat energy, as the exhaust gas temp was only 3C above the water temperature... That is impressive. (water was 5C and exhaust was 8C) A spiral of copper tubing would be much less restrictive to the exhaust gasses, so that is a better setup. A smaller surface area is also a good idea.This would reduce the condensation caused by evaporation, but the condensate in the exhaust will always occur... but would not be a problem with a downward spiral of copper tubing.
What if you went to a piece of real pipe that's in the water so that it will not get holes and wrapped that with very coarse to medium coarse steel wool for more heat in the water
A solid smooth wall pipe would be much better... I don't think the steel wool would be necessary though. If you were trying to keep it as compact as possible, this could help.
@@loweredexpectations4927 i have a hot water cylinder with a heating coil run by a webasto termo top with is wired up to a stock air heater controller. running the motor in parallel. Works good. 3l diesel a week for 2 person. exhaust is 130C. 3 safety switches to cut of the fuel pump when sadisfied or during a waterpump failure
Maybe we need to find the efficiency of the burn compared to the length of the tubing before cooling it down in the water to stop the carbon monoxide unless that transmission fluid is doing all that CO
Yeah. I have already done a test where I used 4.8M of tubing (in a strait line) so this was sort of a continuation of that. The bends in the tubing and the fact that it doesn't have a smooth surface also has a negative effect on flow. There are lots of different / better ways to do this 👍
I have tried burning gas in the past, and while it sort of works, it is not advisable. Dave McLuckie has a few videos where He tried to modify the burn chamber to burn gasoline and was somewhat successful. The main issue with gasoline is that, not only does it require a different air fuel ratio, but it is much more fussy to getting that ratio spot on. I would like to take one of the gas burning units apart and inspect it to see the difference.
That's a good question. I suspect it is a very complicated calculation with a lot of variables that need to be monitored. The fact that there is CO does mean incomplete combustion, so decreased efficiency. There must be a way to calculate how much fuel is not being burnt based on what is being pumped in and the total CO.
@@bigoldgrizzly It's probably not much as the lower limit for flammability of CO is 12%, and there's no way the exhaust would sustain a flame, though the air fuel ratio really is super lean to begin with. OTOH, even small amounts add up.
He reports that the temperature rise is 10 degrees at 1 hour. That is 50 degrees x 132 lbs of water equals 6600 BTU/3412 BTU/kw equals 1.93 kwh. A lot of wasted energy.
Adversity builds character and resilience, but it still feels shitty when things get you down 😕. Please don't get discouraged and don't let these comments get you down . I see it far too often how a youtuber can get overwhelmed and stressed out trying to fulfill content. It's easy for us watching to criticize and play armchair quarterback, but and in-a-way it's what the "comments" section is for. Your cat looked pretty pissed that another Furby was on his / her home turf. 🤣 I'm honestly confused and a bit disappointed (in a weird way" how you ever decided to submerge so many linier feet of stock diesel heater exhaust pipe when running the risk of overheating and the obvious high C02. I was then shocked that you're considering replicating the same in a soldiered copper😯. Please, for the love of all that is good, don't do that. 🙏🏻 Consider running the stock exhaust pipe directly onto a 5" long 2" OD steel threaded pipe nipple". One end install a thread-on cap with a 1"1/2 hole drilled through it to receive a steel fitting that will accept the heaters exhaust pipe. The end of the nipple inside the tank is easily waterproofed with large flat washers nuts and glue. Use Black pipe fittings. The heat exchanger inside the tote is nothing more that an empty muffler shaped steel object that exits the opposite side of the tote via a second pipe nipple fitting and washers, nuts, glue. You may have to prop-up or hang the "muffler " object and perhaps weld a few bits but , it's way less hassle than what you've put yourself through. That tote needs to remain covered but remove the air intake from inside the tote. All in all you've already proven that you can certainly heat water using the heaters exhaust. If you do decide to revisit this water heater, build one that is saleable for practical use and put some money back in your pocket. I'm certain someone will buy it. 😎Cheers Joel.
Thanks Dan. i enjoy what I do and try not to let negativity get to me. There is a lot more positivity, so it's sort of a matter of what I choose to pay attention to. Haha... Yes, Quasar was confused about what was happening. He usually hangs out under our trailer on lookout... but he must have been sleeping or something, haha. HAHA... I had run the test with much more pipe out of the water and knew that this would be worse than that test... but didn't figure it would be so bad. I wanted to make sure that I was capturing as much of the heat energy as reasonably possible... Considering the exhaust gas temp was only 3-5C higher than the eater temp. I think I achieved that goal. If I do it with copper, I won't use nearly as much. Copper is a much better conductor, so it will do a better job even with half of the pipe... and the smooth wall should help with flow as well. The main thing when building a heat exchanger is having lots of surface area, trying to keep the flow rate slow so it has time to transfer heat, and a material that is suited to transferring heat... An automotive muffler would probably work well if you made sure that it was sealed. This was supposed to be a quick and dirty project to break up the monotony of waste oil testing, as I had a few videos in a row of that... If I do it again, I will put more thought into it👍
That would solve the leaking issues in a hurry ! haha... However, sand is not nearly as good at capturing heat, so it would take more sand to capture the same amount of energy.
I'm curious how you came up with the channel name "Lowered Expectations".... Is it simply because you're from Canada ?? 🤣🤣.... I'm just playing Still curious about the name though 🤔
Haha... I came up with the name because, originally, it was my secondary channel. My Joel Arseneault YT channel was where I posted all of my "main" content, and this channel was supposed to be for bloopers, extras and nonsense that I didn't want on my other channel. As it was supposed to be random nonsense, I thought the name was fitting. I was going to call it "My Latest Obsession" ... but that name was already taken so I chose this one. I later found out that Mad TV had a series of videos called "lowered expectations" ...
@@loweredexpectations4927 ... Awesome !! Yes I remember watching that on Mad TV too. Well keep up the good work and I have enjoyed watching your content, even if you are from Canada...🤣🤣
Haha... That just so happens to be a happy little accident. I was going to call my channel "My Latest Obsession" but that was taken by some girl who did makeup tutorials or something, so I decided on this name. A while later, I tried searching for my channel on YT and all these MadTV skits popped up... I was like WTF ! haha.
This as a really useful video. It shows there is about 500w of waste heat being lost out of the exhaust and if anyone wants to capture this to heat water, say in an RV, they had better keep the exhaust tube length reasonably short to minimise back pressure and CO production and should make sure there is a continual fall in the pipe so that water produced by combustion and any tar drains straight out.
Yeah.... I think the exhaust losses are likely up around 750W, but the heat loss from the uninsulated water means that it is losing a lot of wattage to the surrounding air. Shorter or larger tubing is a must to keep CO reasonable.
I'm glad you didn't delete. Always learn something even if that's not to do it again. That said I think the thermal battery idea is great for static situations, the fact the energy is essentially free makes it even better. I have a short length, approx 1 m, of exhaust in a metal box cooled with computer fans which works great. I'll take a thermal pic next time it's running to show the temp difference across the length.
Thanks for the comment and support. I think the fan idea like you have, or with a exchanger is a better idea. I'm not sure if I will have time to do it this year, but I would like to make a similar setup.
Watching you stir the water was pleasurable.
Haha... Thank goodness. I'm glad I didn't edit that out.
Hi , first thank you for all your experiements... I'm trying to figure out a way I could use the exhaust heat to warm up my preston in my truck in winter ... so heating the cab and heating the engine both at the same time... Have you tried this experiement ? thanks!
I have not done this, but this is originally what these heaters were used for... except they weren't air heaters, they were coolant heaters.
I have not done it, but others have used EGR coolers on their exhaust to heat water. I personally do not think that this would be ideal for heating a vehicle cooling system. The issue is that the exhaust is likely less than 1kw of energy of you are 100% efficient.
@@loweredexpectations4927 I have not done any of this in a vehicle but only in a shop, but I am thinking of a conventional car heater core in front of the diesel heater outlet to capture most of the heat and put it into the coolant instead of the air.
Then, in addition use an EGR cooler to capture the exhaust heat from the diesel heater.
Both of those heat exchangers should capture a significant portion of the heat output from the diesel heater.
The coolant can then be pumped into the engine or used to heat other parts of the vehicle like an RV.
In my RV we have three heaters that use engine coolant to heat the RV cabin and they work very well.
I don't see why those heaters could not be connected to a diesel heater as well as the engine.
Note, for my shop heater I used a pressure relief valve from a hot water tank and also used a coolant expansion tank placed higher up to always make sure that all the lines were filled with coolant.
Wow I can’t believe you did it before me. I’m jealous 😅. . “That is a lot of condensation!” I thought oh no it can't be 🤣!!! You got my mental telegraph. This is the exact setup I had in mind except the exhaust length. I almost bought a black tote but to camouflage in nicely with the window wall, I bought a semitransparent white one.
I totally get your frustrations. Thank you so much for doing the experiment, validating and endorsing the concept. For experimental purpose, the leak is inevitable if you have multiple pipes and joints. I thought you was going to first try with just one pipe half a loop / gentle curve shape knowing that the bends would introduce elevated CO. If the exhaust goes outside, 1000ppm is of no issue.
It’s alright. It doesn’t need to be perfect. You have successfully demonstrated the concept to practice. The idea alone is worth spreading. You went far beyond that. From here people will refine upon your result; insulate the container if they want hotter than 40°C, hot water cylinder, BPHE, shorten exhaust length, bigger exhaust pipe diameter, use silicone exhaust coupler (to prevent leak), etc.
The efficiency seems 100% thank to the long pipe I guess. That’s an incredible result. Look at that steam coming out nicely 😮. I could even feel the heat 🔥from here. Heating power turned out 0.6-0.7kW as expected at highest setting. It won’t reach to the boiling point due to the factors you mentioned but that’s not the point. The point is to capture the exhaust heat as much as possible, as cheap and easy as possible so people with no special tool can repeat. 40°C is more than enough for a hot bath, warm water for cleaning, etc. 10°C per hour increase is not bad at all given your climate, by the time you feel warmed up, you can have a nice hot bath. I never aim to make a cup of tea with it. I’ll just use a kettle for that.
Ouch take 32!!! 😅😹
Great minds think alike!
I had planned on running this test dry first and then wet... I also wanted to just loop it in a 5 gallon pail to see what would happen... but the season is short and I was running out for time for all of the experiments, so I decided to do this one.
If your intention is to heat the water, then you want to insulate it. If your intentions are to capture as much heat from the water as possible, you are better off leaving it open and uninsulated. Water at 20C is going to be much more efficient at capturing energy than 40 or 50 C water.
I was also blown away at the efficiency ! 3C over water temp.... That being said, when the water temp was at 40C, the exhaust temp was 43C (about) .... If you try to argue with physics, you lose every time, haha.
Haha... yes... 32 attempts at one clip ! It's not that uncommon. I get distracted pretty easily !
Great minds!! 😅Yes I intend to experiment a dedicated water heating project after this one. I will submerge the heater body / radiator part and the exhaust totally in water absorbing all the heat produced by the heater to heat the water. Atm it is at a concept stage but like this one I’ll think through it. That will take absolutely no time to boil a bath. Electricity and everything else being so expensive, I’m afraid this will be the only viable option in the future before they ban it, they will!
No you can’t argue with physics. If you think the temps will add up like apples and oranges you find that they don’t, for example, if you mix two cups of water at 50°C, the mixture doesn’t end up at 100°C! On the other hand if you turn on a heater and turn on another heater the heat generated by both add up! In the first case, no external energy is going into the water but in the latter case, an extra 100% energy is going into the room. Still blown away. The specific heat of water is so great it only leaves +3C at the exhaust, of course in “relative sense”. It will boil water if the tank is insulated like in a hot water cylinder. The exhaust temperature of 290-300°C can easily lend 100°C to water. 😅
Hat’s off and thank you very much again for your persistence, expertise and humbleness. 🙏@@loweredexpectations4927
@@examplerkey I really want to do that as well. The submerging thing... I think it will be quite challenging ... I haven't put a lot if thought into it yet... but I can see it being tricky. Maybe if you can stand the heater on end with the heat outlet side pointing down. Challenging, but rewarding.
Thanks for the support and enjoy your tinkering ! ... Will you be posting videos ?
It will have to start with running the heater upright on the heat exchanger and see if it can burn the fuel reliably without any leak or soot build up inside. If it passes this test, then the heater can be installed upright in this way on top of the tote. 👍
If not, it will have to stand (held up) on the fan end with the heat exchanger going into the tote from the bottom via a circular metal plate with a hole for the heat exchanger in the middle. This can be in the form of an extended metal gasket or the heat exchanger part crudely siliconed to the plate for the experiment sake 😯. The idea is to submerge the heat exchanger in the water from any possible direction (top, side or bottom) and extract the heat that way ⬆➡⬇🙃🙂.
It will be 6-7 times more heat from it compared with the exhaust, so maybe a small / medium pump will be needed to circulate the water every now and then on timer. Whether or not the exhaust also goes through the water is an option limited only by the time and other constraint of the experiment. Yes I will post it after I finish.@@loweredexpectations4927
@@examplerkey Yeah... that's the way I "plan" things also... whatever works , haha.
It will be so much easier if the heater runs with the inlet fan pointing straight up ... hopefully !
I'm sure there are options to slow or stop the heater depending on water temperature. I've been wanting to do something like this for a while now, but it's all a matter of how much time I have and where I want to focust that time.
Good luck !
Have you thought about using a water to air heat exchanger to use the exhaust gas running through the exchange and then use a fan blowing across the fins to heat the air for extra heating.
Yeah, I've been wanting to do something like that for quite some time... on the list of many things to do, haha. I have seen people doing this with EGR coolers...
I already had the exhaust tubing for a previous test / experiment, so it didn't cost me anything to throw it together.
@@loweredexpectations4927 I have seen a bunch of videos on the EGR cooler but than you have to deal with a pump, coolant, and over flow tank. With the heat exchanger you only have the exhaust in the exchange tubes and an electric fan.
I found the perfect one on Amazon but UA-cam won't let you post links in the comment section. Try searching this below.
Water to Air Heat Exchanger 12x12 with 1‘’ Copper Ports for Outdoor Wood Furnaces, Residential Heating and Cooling, and Forced Air Heating
One bend with large radius would not limit exhaust flow this much, and 50cm of tubing submerged in water would still recover a lot of heat. Also, EGR cooler would be worth a try, it's water jacket can be removed to get it's heat output directly to container with no pump
One bend would be much better for flow. 50CM would collect some heat, but the exhaust had a 3C higher temp than the water, so anything shorter would be less effective. How much less effective ... I have no idea, haha.
I really want to play with an EGR cooler at some point... it is on my long list of things to do.
If you revisit this experiment in any capacity. I think you will have better luck. Using roughly half the exhaust pipe. However this time run copper tube around the exhaust pipe (Trying different windings ect... Maybe run the warm water through radiators. You probably can make 2 months plus worth of videos or more. Trying different combinations of radiators you find at the dump. Even if you bought a few of Amazon. They are not terrible expensive. You can even make your own (EGR manifolds) and test them. EGR exhaust gas recycler. Your options are practically endless. When it comes to reclaiming lost energy from these heaters. Good luck. I hope you tackle this project.
I would love to revisit this at some point and see how little copper pipe it would take to make the system efficient. There are many ways to make this better and it was of the videos that I was least pleased with.
LMAO! "If it does we can pretend it was the 1st time I tried!" That was classic Dude!
Haha... I'm glad you enjoyed that. I had already filmed it twice and the holes didn't really line up.
Now you have a pretty good idea of the good and bad of the heaters. Any thoughts of having a go at designing one of these from the ground up? Maybe a collaboration with a few who are as into it as much as you.
That is an interesting idea, and I have considered it. I have been in the process of building a CNC milling machine, but have had to keep my projects fairly small because of some ... life events. I'm going through a separation and may have to move soon... So a LOT of stuff has been put on hold.
@@loweredexpectations4927 Ahh... Went down the self build CNC route myself. Got into Fusion 360 for design and used Arduino to drive Nema 17. Wood metal construction using din rail and 17mm bearings. All that sends you on a whole world of discovery. Carved wood and acrylic with it. All now disassembled and will at some time have another go. As for you getting into designing your own heater. If you can, do it. Give the Chinese a run for their money. 👍
find a used waterheater .. remove the heating and zink anode .. turn a new lid..
get a 3m cupper pipe where exshaust can fit in to not over.. like water air can´t
be blown without resistance.. so a bigger cu tube will be way more efficiant..
it is not the length but the surface of the tube..
Yes... that would work really well. There are lots of great ways to heat water, but I already had this exhaust tubing from another test, and the idea wasn't just to heat the water, but more to collect data and see about how much heat was lost out the exhaust and how well standard stainless tubing would capture the heat.
@@loweredexpectations4927 yes yes bro.. but on the other way you can
Get higer temperatur.. .. let's say you turn the heater on in the morning
IT will heat 100 200 300L water so you can bath ewery 2 Day.. or ewery Day
Becaus of the insulation and bigger tubing.. adwice.. when you bend cupper
Or aluminium .. fill tubing with fine sand.. then the tubing don't get flat at the bend
Greetings from DENMARK.. love you'r idea.. just use a tube big enough you can
Push / pull a duster truh to get the sood build up out of exshaust pipe/heater
I'm glad I waited until the end to comment this time, because I was thinking through most of the video that 1" coiled copper tubing would be a good leak proof way to go.
Haha... yes... it would flow better and also transfer heat much better, meaning you could use a lot less of it, compared to stainless.
Always happy watch the videos, I'm happy you posted it. Sand my have been a bit less of a pain to work with. Looking forward to more waste oil videos could we see your new set up running on veg oil to see how it runs. 🙂
I do have some Veg oil... I was planning on running itin a standard chamber... but we will see what happens. I'm working on modifying my chamber to burn cleaner now, so maybe a veg oil test after that.
@@loweredexpectations4927 veg oil and diesel mix runs but causes a lot of soot on mine overtime and I get carbon build up on the flame initiation air hole
@@Coffeebean1482 When you run veg oil, are you just using a single tank to start and stop the heater ? I have had a few people insist that if you start on bure diesel, and shut down on diesel, you won't have issues.... I personally think most or all of them have never actually tried it and are just making stuff up.
Veg oils have glycerine, and that is apparently the issue. Biodiesel is veg oil with this removed.
@@loweredexpectations4927 I just use a single tank. As I don't have a spare. I agree with you because the heater still gets up to temp on the mix so should burn any rubbish off but it doesn't seem to it slowly clogs up. But I think with your modified chamber it would burn well it has nothing to gunk up.
@@Coffeebean1482 Yeah... I think you are right.
If you do come back to this using copper tubing, and if the temperature actually increases to a useful range, I'd like to see you add some thing to circulate the water and try to cook something sous vide style!
Thanks for the comment.
I am almost 100% certain that the temp would not rise much more, or any more with this current water container. The stainless exhaust worked really well at putting heat into the water, as the temp difference between the water and exhaust was only about 3C
Unfortunately, physics gets in the way of our fun, and as the water heats up, the exhaust can't heat it as efficiently. Meaning. Once the water reaches 40C, the exhaust coming out of the pipe will always be a minimum of 40C. Energy from 40C exhaust can not heat 40C water.
You can heat a larger volume of water with a second or larger tub, but you can't reach a higher temperature, unfortunately. The only way to do this would be to have a very small tub, or to have it extremely well insulated.... or to use it like a shower, and heat water in real time.
@@loweredexpectations4927 I wonder if adding a heat pump to the contraption would be able to raise the temperature, but that's way beyond the scope of your experiment and probably not worth the cost unless you have access to an old air conditioner you can modify to run as a heat pump
@@lemonherb1 Haha.... Yeah. I'm sure you could do some interesting things with a heat pump !
I’ve got a 5kw heater in my garage that I have the exhaust piped into an old 100gallon propane tank. It then exits out the bottom And goes through the wall of the garage outside. With the size of the steel tank it does a pretty good job of dissipating the heat. I haven’t checked actual temps or CO on the exhaust but it’s just steam and condensation that drips out.
I can totally understand getting burned out on a project. Sometimes you just gotta take a break and come back when you’re truly interested in it.
I had a 300L (45 gallon) oil drum last summer, and I wanted to keep it around to try what you have done, but I couldn't justify keeping it around as I dont' have the extra space, haha.
Yeah... sometimes when a projet goes sideways, the best idea is to set it aside and come back to it at a later date.
Better to use a purpose made diesel water heater. Use a heat exchanger style water heater tank to limit the amount of water in circulation through the heater ( of course use a 50/50 glycol water mix)
@@gbear1005 Yes, if your objective is to heat water, then the water heat type is much better. The idea of this test is to capture lost heat energy, while using an air heater.
@@gbear1005 even diesel water heaters have exhaust heat that is wasted unless you have some type of exhaust heat recovery system. Straight water is actually more efficient at transferring heat than glycol. Though there are some benefits, like the corrosion resistance and obviously the freeze protection.
You are getting good at The Machining Montage.
Haha... thanks... What happens is, I record 3 hours of footage of me explaining in detail the build process, and why I did it the way I did.... and then when it comes time to edit I'm like.... Well... just this part could be an hour long video, haha.
I had actually considered turning just making that part into a video, but didn't think that would go over well for most people... I like how it turned out !
Hello my friend!
Then someone should say that telepathy doesn't work! All I have to do is think of something and 3-4 days later, you make exactly the video I was thinking of! Thanks for that!
Haha... NICE !
Even though you don't plan on doing this again, someone else might consider doing it. One important factor is to not allow the exhaust temperature drop below 180ºC/356ºF for very long as condensation in the exhaust can form and cause corrosion failure of the head exchanger. This is the same concept as the old steam locomotive boilers but at ambient pressures. Altrenatively, maybe the heater output air could be used to heat water instead of the room.
Thanks for your comment.
The whole idea with this test is to capture as much heat energy as possible and purposely condense the exhaust. Altho the condensate is acidic it is only about the same PH as orange juice, and the exhaust tubing is 304 stainless (if you believe the chinese retailers)
I suspect that mild steel would have a pretty short life in this environment, but 304 stainless is quite resistant to acid and oxidation. I'm not sure how aluminum or copper would fair though. Aluminum forms a protective oxide that usually protects it from corrosion, but the weak acid may be enough to remove the oxide layer and cause serious issues.
If you are losing about 800w out the exhaust, and you can capture about 700W using this method, then it wouldn't take long for it to pay for itself. I am assuming that by "exchanger" you mean the exhaust heat capturing system, as you would never be able to cause water to condense in the actual heater exchanger.
The carbon monoxide is high because the exhaust is cold.
Hot exhaust pipework helps to make the CO oxidise into carbon dioxide, also producing even more heat in the exhaust.
You really need some kind of pre-
oxidising chamber to burn off the carbon monoxide and obtain the extra heat from its combustion.
I can't tell you how to do it.
Yeah... I suspected it is the cold exhaust and mentioned this in my previous exhaust video... however, I think this has more to do with the cool dense air being more resistant to flow... the reduced exhaust flow also causes less inlet air, and that makes CO.
Perhapsy a catalytic converter... but you need to keep it hot for it to work.
You can get muffler putty or tape at Canadian Tire to fix any pinholes and also to seal the pipe connections. Also, I now add a capful of Kleen-flo diesel fuel treatment, that I also buy at CT, to the fuel tank to significantly reduce the carbon buildup in my heater and the amount of smoke produced (I no longer see that big cloud of smoke on start-up, for example). Since you are also burning waste oil which causes that carbon buildup I wonder if the diesel additive would make enough of a difference in carbon production to reduce the need to disassemble and clean your heater?
Thanks for the comment.
The biggest issue with the pinholes is actually locating them. I sealed a few, and more kept appearing, haha.
I have tried some additives in the past for waste oil. They do indeed help with carbon, but the ash build up is the real problem. That's cool that it works so well for you. I wonder if you heater is running rich ? It shouldn't really have carbon issues if it is running well.
I have a Canadian company sending me a diesel additive to test... should be interesting.
Would biodiesel help? It’s a very good solvent and very slippery.
@@wallacegrommet9343 I haven't tried it ... I've heard some people have good luck with it.
18:09 Garaaaage! You paused after saying it, I'm taking credit for that! You know what I'm talking aboot. 🤣🤣🤣🤟🏻🤟🏻👑
Haha. I have paused at least a few times because of you, haha.
Have you considered a counterflow heat exchanger? Easy to make with copper-in-copper but maybe running the exhaust thru copper would eat the copper.
I have considered trying this and may do it in the future. It is possible that the elevated PH of the exhaust could damage the copper. I am not sure.
36° C Perfect bath/shower water !!
As long as you only need 60 litres, then it's all good ! haha. Of course, if you were doing this and your goal was to heat the water, then insulating it would be highly beneficial.
Hot water cylinder coil (if you have such a thing in Canadia) could be a good ready made copper coil, maybe from a scrap yard or local plumber's recovery.
Yeah...Anything copper is going to be way better. I used this as I already had it and it is what most people will think of when they attempt something like this.
A note to future you from 3:59. The exaust pipe may not be watertite. Especially when heated up.
Haha... thanks for the tip ! I should have tested each piece before installing.
A shorter run of pipe through the water would allow the exhaust temperature to stay up and keep the water dried out of the pipe and you could also wrap it with the heavy to medium steel like an AC pipe or tube
Yeah... I think the downward slope is a better idea because you want to collect as much heat as possible. Keeping the exhaust hot will take care of the condensate problem, but you waste a lot of heat.
Wow not only was it a pain in the ass, but it took a bunch of time for little positive end result. Even just the time it took to film this was certainly a lot of work. Thanks for not just deleting all of this though! I do wonder if it is worth doing one of those finned heat exchangers for the exhaust. Maybe I'll explore that at some point.
I think it is worth it to use a heat exchanger... if you take your time, think it through and do it right, haha. A baseboard radiator, all metal car radiator or something like that, with the appropriate flow rate and a way for moisture to drain out, and you basically gain back about 700 watts .
@@loweredexpectations4927 Wow! I didn't think it would be that high. I figured it would help a little bit, but I am surprised it is that high. Maybe at some point I'll try a hydronic heating tube, or an all metal heater core.
Hello Joel, I don't know how you are going to use this hot water but I think that the system that I have set up produces a better result in fact, I heat 3 radiators on the circuit and I reach 50 degrees Celsius on the 3 after one hour of operation. I will make you a little video of the assembly soon but for the moment, you are doing a good job. Keep going
Thanks for the comment.
The only real plan was to make a video to share some data with people, haha. More of an experiment for the sake of experimenting.
If I were to do this for myself, I would be interested in capturing as much heat energy as possible, and not so much in heating up water. I was going to use a small water pump to circulate the water, perhaps through a radiator.
I will probably come back to this idea at some point in the future, when I have more time to focus on it. I have seen your EGR cooler set up... very nice.
@@loweredexpectations4927 Thank you for the EGR but that's not what I was talking about, in fact, the heating is coupled to the heating system of the house but it can work independently to heat just the workshop I will show you that soon
@@gassereric Cool... Sounds very interesting.
Was the air inlet above the water? Could either inlet be pulling in water vapor? Causing such high readings. Or is it likely just exhaust length.
I think there were a few factors, but the main thing is the bends in the pipe. I used 4.8 metres of pipe in a previous video and it word fine.
Another thing that is likely happening, is that the cooler exhaust is more dense, and therefore causes more resistance to flow. When I did my last test, adding a new section of cold pipe would cause the CO to spike until it warmed up... then it would be okay. Similarly, when starting the heater from cold, it make a HUGE cloud of smoke and a LOT of CO, but then was fine once it warmed up.
Something else I think that I've noticed is to get good burns and no water build up in your pipe it should go downhill similar to a drop in a sewer line so that water doesn't stand
Yes... going down or at an aggressive downward slope would make sure there wasn't a build up of condensate.👍
A all metal car heater matrix would probably be a cheap and easy option for this. I'm wondering if using oil instead of water would be a better way to go it would solve the evaporation problem and opens up many options of how to make use of the heat under floor heating sand battery etc. Why do you have to keep Quasar on a lead I've always let my cat's come and go as they please I have adopted every cat I've had and always go for the street wise independent type
Yeah... oil would solve the evaporation problem making the process more efficient.
Megan is a Vet Tech and is very protective of Quasar. She gets to see a lot of cats that don't fair well because of running lose. I do often allow him to run free, but she does not approve.
do you think that backpressure in your exhaust because of the extra lengths of pipe are causing the heater to run too rich?
It is not -only- due to the length of the exhaust, as I have another video using 4.8 M of tubing, and it worked fine for that test. CO was around 40 ppm.
The problems here are likely caused by the number of bends in the tubing and the fact that the air in the pipe is cool, therefore dense and has more resistance.
Did we get an outside exhaust temperature to see what kind of temperature reduction, or waste heat utilization?
The exhaust gasses were 8C when the water was 5C .... so 3C above water temp. As the temp of the water increases, the gasses would be stuck at a minimum of the water temperature.... SO when the water was up to 40C. the exhaust is likely around 43C, for example.
The ability to transfer heat was extremely efficient...
I recon if you swapped to smooth walled ex pipe you'd get better flow and lower CO readings, not sure that would change much but less back pressure would be better 🤔
Yeah, I think you are right with that assumption. If I do it again, I will use something else for pipe.
Need ideas, give me a moment cuz I’m drunk. Will have a think :)
LOL.... The best ideas come in this situation !
While the rig is set up it would be useful to know what length of immersed tube is really needed to extract most of the available heat - I guess less than you used. Perhaps check the heat of the tube at various distances from the input ?
Yeah... I used a little over 2.4M of exhaust, and the outlet temp was only 3C above water temp, so it was working very efficiently.... just not free flow enough.
Yeah... if I would have checked along the length of tubing, I could pick a place where I was willing to give up X amount of heat. The only variable is the number of bends and now tight they are, as this will have an effect.
If you had used PH test strips you would have found the liquid exhaust condensate was very low PH. It is very understandable that your cheap corrugated exhaust tubing has corrosion holes in it from your previous exhaust heat recovery experiments. The more you cool the exhaust the worse the corrosion will be, example high efficiency condensing gas furnaces use PVC vent stacks. Glad you're trying ATF, also consider trying screw compressor oil but be careful with the synthetic version it can contain a lot of hard to remove emulsified water if recovered with an oil-water separator. If you repeat the water heating experiment, use an old ice chest.
Thanks for your comment.
I tend to believe that the holes are there from poor manufacturing. I wouldn't totally rule corrosion out as a possibility, but I think this cheap tubing is made of 304 stainless and is pretty corrosion / acid resistant.
Interesting... Screw compressor oil eh. There are so many different types of lubricants out there. The other day someone recommended HP printer oil ... I looked it up and my mind was blown.
You know what... I had an old ice chest that was kinda rough, and I left it in the alley with a "free" sign on it... dang it, haha.
Please try using a radiator for pc cooling or a small transmission cooler radiator for either heating up water or transferring the energy similar to an outdoor wood furnace. Thanks for posting keep up the good work
Something similar to this is on my LONG list of things to do, haha.
Huh. I have 3 meters of exhaust and my CO is well below 50. I have a CO meter on the way, but on my CO alarm, if I trigger it by putting it in a bag with smoldering incense, then pull it out of the bag and put it in front of the exhaust, the number goes down to about 25 before the display shuts off. A meter and an alarm both use electrochemical sensors, so I'm confident the reading is valid. CO being from incomplete combustion, maybe switching from alpine to regular might improve that number, but I suspect something else is amiss. Anyway, I can understand being sick of a project, so onward and upward. Or downward.
Yeah... something wasn't quite right here from the very beginning. The only thing I can think is that the density of exhaust gasses are very high due to the condensing effect from cooling. The outlet temp was only 8C so all of the moisture was condensing.
In the video where I tested the strait pipe, I had noted that the exhaust seemed to run with more CO after adding a cool section of pipe, and then the CO would come back to acceptable after the pipe warmed up.
I may revisit this at some point.... but not for a while, haha.
@@loweredexpectations4927 I remember that, it made me think of that too. At a later date, perhaps!
And would look something like you see on air conditioning coils
I think you can actually buy that stuff that goes on the outside of tubing to act as fins.
I have proposal. If pipe is in water, it can't get over 100C. Using bigger diameter aluminum pipe in water box turned from bottom up in correct manner almost filling 50% of volume. This gives very big surface area and less turbulence and Al has way better heat transfer. So there must be adapter under water not to melt Al pipe. I am thinking about ventilation flexible 80mm Al hose. Then water buildup would not be a problem either. Idea: Maybe the water vapor at intake causes bad CO emissions?
Thanks for the comment.
I think there may be some confusion. The reason it can't reach 100C is because the water is poorly insulated. My exhaust system was capturing almost all of the heat energy, as the exhaust gas temp was only 3C above the water temp. (5C water vs 8C exhaust) There is no more energy to capture.
The heater is producing about 800 watts of waste heat out the exhaust. If you capture 100% of it and put it into the water temp will rise. However, the water is capable of dissipating heat into my garage at a variable wattage.
When the water is cool, it can dissipate a small amount of heat, but the hotter it gets, the more watts of energy will be sucked out into heating the garage. The only way to avoid this is to perfectly insulate the water.
Another issue, is that exhaust gasses that are 40C can not heat water that is 40C. If the water temp raises to 60C, for example, the coolest the exhaust gasses can be is 60C. To capture more heat you would need to lower the temp of the water or use a second container of water to also heat up.
Aluminum and copper are WAY better and conducting heat, but the stainless is already bringing the temp down to a few degrees above water temp.
Getting an EGR cooler from the wreckers would be a lot less hassle, and give you way better results......
Yes... I really want to try an EGR cooler at some point. I did this as I had the pipe from another experiment, and wanted to see what would happen. Pretty efficient, but a PITA, haha.
So what your saying is that it will heat a hot tub no problem 😊 👌
Haha... I guess it depends on the size of the hot tub, and how hot you want it to be. Maybe a hot tub for Quasar.
It looks like this was topping out at 40C and the surface area is pretty small. The larger the surface area, the more heat losses, so the cooler the water would be... I think you'd want to submerse the whole heater, haha.
Why did you use stainless steel? As I stated in a comment in your "Capturing Waste Heat - 5 Meters Of Stainless Exhaust - Will It Even Run ?" video from 3 weeks ago, copper has 20 times the thermal conductivity of stainless steel thus you could use FAR less tubing length for the same thermal extraction with the added benefit of it being SMOOTH inside giving a larger effective ID than the flexible stainless.
My plan was specifically to do a bunch of tests with this tubing to see what will and won't work. I'm not actually trying to design a setup to capture heat or to heat water.
Copper is way better and would be a better choice, hands down. My assumption is that a LOT of people will attempt to use this stuff, because it is the right size, ships to your door from Amazon, bendable and what comes with the heater, so it is familiar.
Possibly it would have worked better and the water was heated faster with a copper coil but with a much larger diameter than the exhaust. And the water container should be in the shape of a barrel, having a small water evaporation surface taller and narrower so the copper spiral could easily eliminate the condensation that would occur. I suspect that the experiment started without prior planning.
Haha.. yeah. There wasn't a lot of planning, and I was using what I had laying around.
While copper is a better conductor, the stainless was effectively removing almost all of the heat energy, as the exhaust gas temp was only 3C above the water temperature... That is impressive. (water was 5C and exhaust was 8C)
A spiral of copper tubing would be much less restrictive to the exhaust gasses, so that is a better setup. A smaller surface area is also a good idea.This would reduce the condensation caused by evaporation, but the condensate in the exhaust will always occur... but would not be a problem with a downward spiral of copper tubing.
@@loweredexpectations4927 "but would not be a problem with a downward spiral of copper tubing." Exact 👍
Maybe if you run the exhaust into a copper coil you'll get a higher temp. Copper conducts the heat better than steel.
Copper would be better for sure. It conducts heat so much better that you could use much less of it and maybe lower the CO emissions.
What if you went to a piece of real pipe that's in the water so that it will not get holes and wrapped that with very coarse to medium coarse steel wool for more heat in the water
A solid smooth wall pipe would be much better... I don't think the steel wool would be necessary though. If you were trying to keep it as compact as possible, this could help.
You need to get a used webasto thermo top car heater and do the water test with it again
That would be cool... Not a fair comparison as this is just collecting waste exhaust heat, but they are pretty cool units. 👍
@@loweredexpectations4927 i have a hot water cylinder with a heating coil run by a webasto termo top with is wired up to a stock air heater controller. running the motor in parallel. Works good. 3l diesel a week for 2 person. exhaust is 130C. 3 safety switches to cut of the fuel pump when sadisfied or during a waterpump failure
Maybe we need to find the efficiency of the burn compared to the length of the tubing before cooling it down in the water to stop the carbon monoxide unless that transmission fluid is doing all that CO
Yes... this would be a good idea... A larger tube would also take care of the CO problem.
Perhaps because of the length of exhaust pipe there is too much back pressure. You might try using larger exhaust piping. 🙄
Yeah. I have already done a test where I used 4.8M of tubing (in a strait line) so this was sort of a continuation of that. The bends in the tubing and the fact that it doesn't have a smooth surface also has a negative effect on flow.
There are lots of different / better ways to do this 👍
There’s a version that burns regular gasoline. You could work on that next see if it’s possible since gas is half price compared to diesel. 🎉❤
I have tried burning gas in the past, and while it sort of works, it is not advisable. Dave McLuckie has a few videos where He tried to modify the burn chamber to burn gasoline and was somewhat successful.
The main issue with gasoline is that, not only does it require a different air fuel ratio, but it is much more fussy to getting that ratio spot on. I would like to take one of the gas burning units apart and inspect it to see the difference.
As long as there isn't no exhaust leaks in the tank fill it with sand
Yes, I should have done this before disassembling it. I have now moved on to other testing, but I may try sand in the future 👍
Is diesel heater season done already? 😂… where all my people at !?
They are probably at work... like normal people... Or just getting home from work and having a BBQ.
wonder how you calculate the loss of efficiency from the unburned fuel passing through as monoxide ?
ps I'll settle for second ;
That's a good question. I suspect it is a very complicated calculation with a lot of variables that need to be monitored.
The fact that there is CO does mean incomplete combustion, so decreased efficiency. There must be a way to calculate how much fuel is not being burnt based on what is being pumped in and the total CO.
@@loweredexpectations4927 Probably only a small percentage - way less of a worry than the major buggeration factor of re-claiming heat this way
maybe re-brand it as a cunning machine for gassing critters that tunnel under your garden
@@bigoldgrizzly It would be effective at that, haha.
@@bigoldgrizzly It's probably not much as the lower limit for flammability of CO is 12%, and there's no way the exhaust would sustain a flame, though the air fuel ratio really is super lean to begin with. OTOH, even small amounts add up.
Just got off work this thing probably gonna get lit up now
I read that wrong at first and thought you were talking about getting "lit" haha !
@@loweredexpectations4927now that seems like a great idea 💡
Like and Commenting now and watching it later it's nighttime 😅 but I'm hyped
Thanks ! Appreciated !
Another great vid. Thank you
Thanks for the comment. I appreciate it.
Hi. I'm waiting for how to make coffee with chinese diesel heater 😂😂😂👍Greetings
HAHA... That could totally happen ! ... Well... Maybe hot chocolate, I don't' drink coffee.
I drink coffee but I love sweet chocolate too 😂@@loweredexpectations4927 😂 Cheers 👍
Potentially, someone could still leave a comment saying "first" and still not be wrong...
Does this count as talking to myself ? If I don't this stupid comment will haunt me in my UA-cam studio unanswered comment section.
Also, great video!
Thanks !!
He reports that the temperature rise is 10 degrees at 1 hour. That is 50 degrees x 132 lbs of water equals 6600 BTU/3412 BTU/kw equals 1.93 kwh. A lot of wasted energy.
Yeah... I did the math quickly and didn't think it was that much, but I'm not at all surprised.
Adversity builds character and resilience, but it still feels shitty when things get you down 😕. Please don't get discouraged and don't let these comments get you down . I see it far too often how a youtuber can get overwhelmed and stressed out trying to fulfill content.
It's easy for us watching to criticize and play armchair quarterback, but and in-a-way it's what the "comments" section is for. Your cat looked pretty pissed that another Furby was on his / her home turf. 🤣
I'm honestly confused and a bit disappointed (in a weird way" how you ever decided to submerge so many linier feet of stock diesel heater exhaust pipe when running the risk of overheating and the obvious high C02.
I was then shocked that you're considering replicating the same in a soldiered copper😯.
Please, for the love of all that is good, don't do that. 🙏🏻
Consider running the stock exhaust pipe directly onto a 5" long 2" OD steel threaded pipe nipple".
One end install a thread-on cap with a 1"1/2 hole drilled through it to receive a steel fitting that will accept the heaters exhaust pipe.
The end of the nipple inside the tank is easily waterproofed with large flat washers nuts and glue. Use Black pipe fittings.
The heat exchanger inside the tote is nothing more that an empty muffler shaped steel object that exits the opposite side of the tote via a second pipe nipple fitting and washers, nuts, glue.
You may have to prop-up or hang the "muffler " object and perhaps weld a few bits but , it's way less hassle than what you've put yourself through. That tote needs to remain covered but remove the air intake from inside the tote. All in all you've already proven that you can certainly heat water using the heaters exhaust. If you do decide to revisit this water heater, build one that is saleable for practical use and put some money back in your pocket. I'm certain someone will buy it. 😎Cheers Joel.
Thanks Dan. i enjoy what I do and try not to let negativity get to me. There is a lot more positivity, so it's sort of a matter of what I choose to pay attention to.
Haha... Yes, Quasar was confused about what was happening. He usually hangs out under our trailer on lookout... but he must have been sleeping or something, haha.
HAHA... I had run the test with much more pipe out of the water and knew that this would be worse than that test... but didn't figure it would be so bad. I wanted to make sure that I was capturing as much of the heat energy as reasonably possible... Considering the exhaust gas temp was only 3-5C higher than the eater temp. I think I achieved that goal.
If I do it with copper, I won't use nearly as much. Copper is a much better conductor, so it will do a better job even with half of the pipe... and the smooth wall should help with flow as well.
The main thing when building a heat exchanger is having lots of surface area, trying to keep the flow rate slow so it has time to transfer heat, and a material that is suited to transferring heat... An automotive muffler would probably work well if you made sure that it was sealed.
This was supposed to be a quick and dirty project to break up the monotony of waste oil testing, as I had a few videos in a row of that... If I do it again, I will put more thought into it👍
You should have put chicken soup in that container and had all your subscribers over for dinner 😂
LOL... That's a genius idea.... and a missed opportunity !
Interesting 👍
Thanks !
Fill it with sand
That would solve the leaking issues in a hurry ! haha... However, sand is not nearly as good at capturing heat, so it would take more sand to capture the same amount of energy.
I'm curious how you came up with the channel name "Lowered Expectations".... Is it simply because you're from Canada ?? 🤣🤣.... I'm just playing
Still curious about the name though 🤔
Haha... I came up with the name because, originally, it was my secondary channel. My Joel Arseneault YT channel was where I posted all of my "main" content, and this channel was supposed to be for bloopers, extras and nonsense that I didn't want on my other channel.
As it was supposed to be random nonsense, I thought the name was fitting. I was going to call it "My Latest Obsession" ... but that name was already taken so I chose this one. I later found out that Mad TV had a series of videos called "lowered expectations" ...
@@loweredexpectations4927 ... Awesome !! Yes I remember watching that on Mad TV too.
Well keep up the good work and I have enjoyed watching your content, even if you are from Canada...🤣🤣
@@huf67 Haha... Thanks !
@@loweredexpectations4927 I always wondered if it was this ua-cam.com/video/qIV7vCuh2hI/v-deo.html
Do you happen to be fan of MADtv?
Haha... That just so happens to be a happy little accident.
I was going to call my channel "My Latest Obsession" but that was taken by some girl who did makeup tutorials or something, so I decided on this name.
A while later, I tried searching for my channel on YT and all these MadTV skits popped up... I was like WTF ! haha.
@@loweredexpectations4927 LOL
Inaccessible equipment needed.
Not sure what you mean, but thanks for the comment.
CO2 outside who cares😅😂
Haha... Yeah.
I'm sure with numbers that high it also means that it is causing a lot of soot inside of hte heater. Not ideal.
@@loweredexpectations4927 Nothing a little water injection sprayer doohickey won't take care of 😅
@@donnied6759 ... and there is plenty of water ! haha.