Hi Folks,
I've been lurking here for the last week reading anything & everything and have found some of the info really useful.
Now onto my hair brained idea:
I saw a hot press / airing cupboard recently with a 450 x 900 indirect cylinder in it, but the cupboard had plenty of unused room around the back of the cylinder. I figured a rectangular tank, on its end, tucked over against a side wall would be a far better use of space. Such rectangular indirect tanks seem to be few and far between, so I've been looking at making one from a steel fuel tank, something like this one in the link:
https://www.shop4tanks.co.uk/standard-stainless-steel-water-tanks/150-litre-tank.html
I haven't seen any of the indirect coils for sale on their own, which made me think of just bending my own one and using a pair of bulkhead coupling fittings. I'd need a few surrey flanges too for the immersion & top pipe. If i was going as far as making the indirect coil myself, I'd probably include a thin copper 'wall' to be wound along the heating coil, which would increase the effective surface area a lot and help reduce the heatup time...I haven't run any numbers yet but it'd be interesting to see would it make much difference...even just in theory!
I know it's a buttload of work...but I enjoy these projects! Are rectangular vented cylinders available now, or is there a reason they're not? Any thought / comments / suggestions on the proposal?
I've been lurking here for the last week reading anything & everything and have found some of the info really useful.
Now onto my hair brained idea:
I saw a hot press / airing cupboard recently with a 450 x 900 indirect cylinder in it, but the cupboard had plenty of unused room around the back of the cylinder. I figured a rectangular tank, on its end, tucked over against a side wall would be a far better use of space. Such rectangular indirect tanks seem to be few and far between, so I've been looking at making one from a steel fuel tank, something like this one in the link:
https://www.shop4tanks.co.uk/standard-stainless-steel-water-tanks/150-litre-tank.html
I haven't seen any of the indirect coils for sale on their own, which made me think of just bending my own one and using a pair of bulkhead coupling fittings. I'd need a few surrey flanges too for the immersion & top pipe. If i was going as far as making the indirect coil myself, I'd probably include a thin copper 'wall' to be wound along the heating coil, which would increase the effective surface area a lot and help reduce the heatup time...I haven't run any numbers yet but it'd be interesting to see would it make much difference...even just in theory!
I know it's a buttload of work...but I enjoy these projects! Are rectangular vented cylinders available now, or is there a reason they're not? Any thought / comments / suggestions on the proposal?
