Does anyone have an idea for what to do with a 65 gallon electric waterheater that we no longer need in its original capacity? Thank you.

-- Jordan L Stern (jordanls@home.com), November 21, 2000

Answers

I have peeled the tin, and cut them horizontaly witha a saw and used them for stock tanks, hog troughs. I have made trash burners out of them. I fited one with a hog nipple and cut a hole it the top so I could fill it with water.I have used them for hauling water to the garden, storing grain & feed. If you cut them with a torch do it outside with a breeze blowing away from you, the galvinized coating emits deadly fumes or run a fan on it while you are cutting.

-- Hendo (redgate@echoweb.net), November 21, 2000.

My favorite water heater trick that I saw somewhere or another is to "chain" together your waterheater(s) so that all the water coming into your in-use water heater has to go through (and fill up) all of the other water heaters hooked up to it. Since the water will be heated at it's final destination, it doesn't need to be kept hot in the first ones (and the water will be continually moving in and through).

The advantage to this system is that in the event of an emergency, you have several water heater's worth of drinkable water already stored up, as fresh as the last time you used the water heater. This not only keeps these behemouths out of the landfills, but puts them to good use and can save your family if supplies go down for some reason.

If I'm not mistaken, you do this by hooking the imput of the use heater into the output of the one next to it, which is fed by the output of the one behind it and so on. If you are short on space at the site of the in-use heater, simply put the storage tank(s) in the basement or spare room and run water lines or hoses to each other. Don't forget to insulate according to your weather or it will be a big pain come freezing time.

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), November 21, 2000.

IF it is just iron, and NOT galvanised, peel all the tin and insulation off, lay it on its side and make a wood burner out of it. You can use a barrel stove kit and an arc welder to do one up quick. Not pretty, but it works!

-- Matthew in Central Illinois (matt777harris@webtv.net), November 21, 2000.

I saw one turned into a solar hot water heater. A 3 sided box was built around it, insulated, and everything painted black. Then the open side of the box was covered with plexiglass. It was aimed to the south, and the water did get hot!

-- Eric in TN (eric_m_stone@yahoo.com), November 21, 2000.

I once visited a couple who raised several groups of broilers each year for their freezer and sale. They took a water heater and cut it in about half above the thermostat sideways - not end to end. It was rewired to only operate the bottom heating coil. They then used it was a bath (or whatever) to loosen the feathers on the chickens they were plucking since the remaining heating coil helped to keep the water at temperature.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), November 27, 2000.

Ken, I'll have to remember that one for future use! Another idea I've seen, though I can't remember if the plans specified electric or gas water heaters, was from an article years ago in Mother Earth News. Someone had built a nice little, small-footprint, stove with a firebox, oven, and cook-top, and even a towel rack around it made out of copper pipe, and all they used was two old water heaters. It was a cover picture on that issue of the magazine, but I don't remember the issue number.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), November 27, 2000.

Thanks for all of your great ideas! I hope to have some time in Dec. to experiment.

Jordan

-- Jordan L Stern (jordanls@home.com), November 28, 2000.

Jordan, if the tank doesn't leak, do use it for the tank in a passive water heating system. All you have to do is screw out the top element, which should be screwed into a one inch pipe fitting. Screw out the hose bib at the bottom or the lower element.

Now all you've got to do is hook up a flat plate collector to it, and voila! Hot water for free. Don't pull off the jacket; leave the insulation in, so you'll have hot water for a day or two of no sun, if you don't use it up too fast. I've been using these tanks for this for twenty four years. Eveybody around here seems to give away perfectly good tanks when they don't want to bother replacing a burnt out element.

JOJ

-- jumpoffjoe (jumpoff@echoweb.net), January 10, 2001.