Water Heater into a Steam Maker?

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Timothyj

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Hello,

I want to hack a gas water heater to make steam for a steam room I am building in my backyard.

After looking at the anatomy of my friend's custom built steam boiler that he uses for his steam room and the anatomy of an average gas water heater, they appear very similar. His boiler is basically an oversize soup pot with a cone shaped lid that hinges on. You can loosen the hinges and take the lid off in order to scrub the inside but he says he only needs to do this once a year. At the top of the cone is a 2 inch ubend pipe that connects to a 1 inch pipe that directs the steam into the steam room. He fills his "boiler pot" with a few inches of water and heats it on high flame until it starts to boil, then he lowers the flame and keeps it on a simmering boil, which provides enough steam to keep an 8ft by 8ft by 7ft high space nice and hot and steamy for an hour or so. The steam is continuously piped into the steam room and at no time does any steam pressure build up. As it is created by the boiling water, it rises and goes through the pipe into the steam room.

My thought is to do the same function with a water heater. I will create a new hole at the the top of the tank and weld in a fitting to attach to my 1 inch pipe that will run to my steam room. Then, I will manually fill the tank maybe only a 1/4 full with water. Then , I will control the gas flame manually and heat it until all the water is boiling. Then i will lower the flame and keep it on a simmering boil which should provide lots of steam to my steam room. Ideally, I want to be able to provide continous steam for up to 8-12 hours for all day parties. I wonder if there is some equation for how much time it takes a certain volume of boiling water to turn into steam?

What are your thoughts? Do you think it is possible? Safety concerns?

I wonder about the shape of the top of the water heater. If i make a 2 inch hole in the top of the water heater and weld in a pipe fitting , do you think the hole will be big enough to encourage the steam to exit? My friends boiler has a cone shaped top it serms to funnel the steam into the exit pipe; but is this necessary? If all the other valves in the heater are closed, wont the stesm naturally take the path of least resistance and exit through the open pipe into the steam room?

Thanks for reading,
Much appreciation for any feedback!
 
Maybe he want's to use gas.

problem with using the water heater is there is no safe guards on the burner control. You are going to start a fire and walkaway. what happens when you don't come check out the water level in the pot?
You will need to devise a way to monitor the water level so it doesn't run dry.
You will have guests in the sauna. Don't rely on a HOBO generator.
 
Yes. I need to use propane as I am off grid.

Yes, I am also thinking about monitoring controls and fail safes. Also, because I am off grid, I wonder what kind of burner control and monitoring safe guards I can run off of a battery bank and inverter?

My plan is to test the boil times of different volumes of water. Since I will know the volume of water in the pot because I will measure it before I put it in, I can measure how long it will take say 10 gallons to turn into steam. I will never boil off all of the water until the tank is dry. I plan on always leaving some water in the tank after each boil , so that I can flush the tank to prevent any minersl build up or deposits.
 
water heater tank is not very think, it is not rated for boiler pressures

you are going to split the tank

whole lotta safety concerns..

DSC04138_gly.jpg
 
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