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lawnjocky
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# Posted: 22 Jul 2022 22:36 - Edited by: lawnjocky
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I haven't been around for a while but I thought I would share a fire pit idea since it worked out well. I haven't been having camp fires for a number of years since everyone in the west is terrified of fires. At my place the wind can come up suddenly in the middle of the night and I end up constantly getting up to see if sparks are blowing. So what we did was cut an oil drum in half lengthwise. Then we welded legs on the lower part and a small shelf about 1" wide on top of the cut. Then we welded a couple of handles on the other half to use as a lid when we want to shut it down for the night. The upper half is just placed on the shelf and you are done. It works perfectly and now I can enjoy a camp fire and sleep well too.
Next up will be a wood fired on demand hot water heater that will work on low pressure gravity feed systems. Currently I have a propane on demand hot water system. The problem is that it requires a minimum water pressure so I have a 12v RV pressure system that is powered by battery charged by solar. I have to set up the pressure system and heater each trip. I find that rather than using that I usually just put a 5 gallon pressure cooker on the wood stove. That works fine but I am trying to make my place more turn key and sometimes it is too hot to have a fire inside. So I picked up one of those $60 oil drum stove kits and another drum. I am going to coil copper tubing around the flue, copper doesn't hold up well in the fire box. All joints in the copper will be silver soldered since regular plumbing solder won't hold up to high heat. The cold water inlet will be at the bottom and there will be a shut off there and a drain valve for freeze protection. The hot water will exit the top and a few feet away from the flue will be a conventional water heater temperature pressure relief valve. Inside the flue will be a baffle system like a conventional water heater to divert the heat to the sides.
I will report back when this is complete.
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gcrank1
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# Posted: 23 Jul 2022 09:50
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Sounds like you are 'project oriented' 
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lawnjocky
Member
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# Posted: 23 Jul 2022 13:18
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Not really, I am just trying to make the place more turn key and free of worries. I have a machines shop with all sorts of metal fabricating equipment here at home so I do what I can.
I have had the place for about 18 years and as with most of us there are a lot of things that could be better or were not finished to start with. I am just playing catch up. The fire pit idea turned out so well I thought I would share the idea.
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