Short route front mount what the hell.... UPDATE w/PICS

[curtis]

So I scored this at a local junkyard and the end tanks were damaged as well as the flat piece of aluminum that the mounts are welded to on the bottom. Its nothing special and a Chinese 50 dollar ebay special. Even fixed isn't worth messing with to sell because there so cheap new but it was free so I got to work. I had the angled endtanks from a 18 wheeler core I cut up years ago. They ended up working perfectly for the project but one huge problem. There for 3.5 inch IC pipes on the truck. Damn thats alot of airflow but I'll need it for what this will do. I got it plumbed and works like a champ. Your all thinking damn ain't you a JSB....Could it be Curtis is actually turning wrenches on the car....Did Hell just freezee.....NOPE



















































From the pictures above you see a small blower fan that will be hooked to a duct work system to be built in the next few days when I get a chance. I though of this years ago but in the summer don't need it and it gets put off then in the winter just bitch that its cold and put it off then. I'm sick of being cold so I did it. On the left side you'll notice a square box. This has a small thermostat from an attic fan inside and is sealed with RTV so if I ever need to get in there. Last winter I measure the temp inside the exhaust blower duct at the furnace and it measure 278F and outside at the chinamans cap was 134F on a 34 degree day. Thats alot of energy wasted I could have been useing years ago. My shop and office downstairs usually stays about 61 to 62 degrees when its cold out. This is at chest level and floor temps are cold and my feet hurt If I standing still at the mill or at the work bench. All morning the shop was 61 after a few hours of tig welding that went up to about 64/65 but with opening the garage door a few times about 5pm it dropped down to the 57 to 58 range. I ran to lowes got some aluminum tape and hooked it up about 7:30 or so. I just checked and the shop is 65 to 66 . The multimeter is just bouncing back and forth. As you can see the hot side of the meter is sitting on 158 surface temp. This is with the furnace on and maxed out at 158, This is with the upstairs thermostat set at 70. I'm sure if I went up and cranked the thing to 75 it would go above that on the core. Now on the cold side its averages around 112 surface temp. That's a 46 degree difference and doesn't have the fan on or even hooked up yet so this 25 lbs chunk of aluminum is pulling out 46 degrees and my shop temp went up 4 degrees already.


I'll update this with new data after the fan is working. I would go ahead and do it tonight but I need to move the light fixture 180 degrees and mount a piece of plywood to the ceiling joists for the fan to mount to.


Now why did I put this is general discussions.......Because this keeps my car warm. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif And figured there's more than just me with a gas furnace. The IC isn't a restriction and you can usually find bigger 18 wheeler cores at metal recyclers for about 50 to 100 bucks if you want to go huge. Since this so far only cost me two elbows and some welding rod, gas and electricity I consider it a 100 dollar project. Hopefully my gas and water bill drops next month to prove to my wife it was worth it. Really doesn't matter to me as long as it gets warmer down here.

 

[Chim55117]

that is awesome /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[turboflanagan]

Brilliant Curtis.

And don't worry, nobody thought you were working on your car. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Gabor]

Now imagine if you hooked that up to your water heater instead.

 

[curtis]

My Mom and dad have a hot water radiator system that is heated with about a total of 6 ft of black steel pipe inside the firebox of there stove. The neighbor did one up on my dad and ran a piece of stainless up his chimney and back down and even on the coldest setting on the faucet still is to hot to take a shower while the stove is running wide open. They have to let the fire die down before they ever think about a shower.



I checked the shop this morning and had the office door shut all night and the shop only dropped down to 64 all night with no air circulating. I wired up the the small fan I'm going to use just to a drop cord and put it up against the IC core last night and with it only pulling air on a 6 inch area it was showing 110 degrees on the outlet just after the furnace shut off. Now over the whole area it will never be that high but even 1 or 2 degrees over standard equal temp of the shop is an improvement.

 

[boostx]

What a waste of a good IC.... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif








That just brilliant /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/applause.gif
Need to make one like that for my pool

 

[curtis]

Done


This morning I went out in the shop and it was 64, This was with the office door shut all night and no fan or box around it. Finished the air box and got the fan mounted about 2 hours ago. Took longer to get the thermostat set than build it. I was hoping for just a few degrees but looks like I got 10 or better and the office door has been open so some of my heat is escaping upstairs, Will see what its at in the morning.

Shop is now 70 degrees. When the air coming out of the fan hits 70 it kicks on and off. Its on within about a minute of the furnace kicking on then off about 2 minutes after the furnace is off. Air temp coming out of the fan while running is 97 degrees average. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devil.gif

Only other problem I have to fix is putting a flapper on the outside at the chinaman's hat. I noticed that problem last night while hooking all this up. Had a nice cool breeze blowing in. That should also help heat the house up and downstairs. I would leave it as is because some fresh air coming in and out is a good thing but its causing alot more condensation now than ever before and getting some drips at a few of the joints even with tape on them.

 

I hope that you pulled a permit to install that fmic /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[bazeng]

Awesome work!

Why not chuck it on a vr4? lol

 

[turboflanagan]

That is great! Definitely leave the office door open. It should do a great job of helping heat the rest of the house. And virtually for free too!

 

[Barnes]

Do you have carbon-monoxide detectors in the house and garage?

 

[CarRacer]

Barnes is worried you're removing all the heat, and energy, from the furnace exhaust and possibly preventing it from venting the furnace correctly. A carbon monoxide detector at the furnace might not be the worst idea in the world until your satisfied it's not an issue.

Cool project otherwise and it just adds another reason why I think your house is like an engineer's fun house gone mad.

 

[curtis]

Quoting BarnesMobile:
Do you have carbon-monoxide detectors in the house and garage?



Got two of them brother so no worries.


Checked earlier and the shop was at 70 but just checked and its at 67 but I had the garage door open a few times. Built a flapper last night really helped on the condensation. Real pain in the ass to build and get adjusted.

I built it using a steel tig rod and a aluminum disk I cut out. One one side I put a 90 degree bent so when its open its standing straight up and closed is running parellal with the exhaust. Real pain in the ass because the fan on doesn't let it open all the way. So I started cutting wire off until I got about 3 inches then it flew open...Thats good and bad because when it cut off it wouldn't close. I put two pop rivets on the bottom of the flapper and put the axle/shaft at about 40% down so it has to fall...wrong so I started using little piece of aluminum duct tape until I got the correct weight per lever arm distance etc. Took over an hour to get perfect. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif

 

[AWDnot2]

Curtis, this is awesome!

We have hydronic heating so my setup is a little different.

My furnace/boiler doesn't have a blower to force the air out the vent. I'm thinking this might be a problem?

 

[curtis]

You could always add one. I'm sure it has a hole already to vent or the fire wouldn't burn or draft outside. The fan that pushes the exhaust out is supper small. Its a Fasco 1 amp motor and small fan. 7021-8569 is the number on mine but if you look on ebay for draft inducer fan there's a bunch for $25 buy it now.

 

[AWDnot2]

I gotcha. Mine is all slip fit piping, I'll have to seal the joints since they'll technically be ever so slightly pressurized. my only battle will be condensation from the cooler. I'll have to install the cooler so the core is almost vertical, tilted so condensation will drain on it's own.
I'll just loop the line for the trap and run it to the drain.

My vent is straight up so I'm thinking something like this.

 

[curtis]

Mine is mounted at a slight angle back towards the furnace. Just came out like that I never thought about condensation at this rate. If you look at it like running air compressor lines in a shop you only need 1/16 drop per foot for water to drain. Mine is about a 1/4 inch across the whole core but straight you would work as well. But straight up is probably the best bet.

Now for draining I just went out there and drilled a hole in the bottom of the 18 wheeler end tank at the lowest point then I tapped for a 3/8 pipe thread barb fitting and then milled a fitting off so it would be recessed and used teflon and sealed it up when installed. I ran a piece of 5/16 rubber hose and put a loop in it so the water will fill the loop and keep the co2 gases in check but that's all temporary until I run it outside. Because I either do that or put a solenoid on it that will close when the system is on because if the condensation ever gets low I'll be pumping CO2 in the shop at about 3 or 4 psi through the 5/16 hose. It was really hard to tell exactly how much water its running off in condensation until now. After the furnace shuts off and the exhaust isn't pressurized the fan I installed is still pulling and creating condensation and its running out a stream about .035 or so.


If I ever did this again I would design the end tanks so the condensation would collect in the tank and never have a way out either by recessing the inlet / outlet in the tank or have a catch box inline so the gas supply enters then has to move up a few feet or something.

This spring I'm going to re do the exhaust system on the furnace and use PVC. The outlet temp is down to shop temp so that side will never be a problem and could use the thin stuff on that side. As for the hot side I measured the temp at the fan at 278 which is below PVC melt point but I don't really know how well it wound do so I may just do it out of 3.5 inch exhaust pipe and weld it together but the sch 40 stuff may do fine I need to research PVC melt points and data in my plastic handbook. This BS design double wall crap they use for this is cheap and has too many leaks in it. Even taped up its leaking something all the time if it didn't I wouldn't have places for moisture to escape everywhere.

The way it is now the fan is bolted to the fire box on the furnace and vents straight up turns away 90 degrees then 90 forward to the IC. I'm planing on turning it back 90 away from the IC core heater and into a larger pipe at a 90 degree angle this pipe will go a foot or so lower than where the pipe hits so any moisture will drop to the bottom and not have a way back to the furnace. Then I can put a drain with a solenoid. Then at the top it will turn and go straight to the core.

 

Thats a great idea!

 

You should patent that Curtis. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/applause.gif

 

[curtis]

Why so someone else can change it 10% and I'm out 5 to 10K for a patent. before the internet maybe patents were a good thing but stuff like this to easy to change up.