Well N A, The Tankless Water Heater is the Bomb!

So after finding out that many a commercial "water cooled co2 generators" were simply on demand tankless water heaters, I picked up a small one on e-bay.

Ran the NG lines to the grow room, buried a 50 gallon barrel in the ground , threw a sump pump in it, ran the hoses, and connected the water pump to my co2 controller. Tadahhh.. works like a charm!!

List of equipment and cost:
6 liter tankless NG water heater $165
harbor freight 1/2 HP submersible pump $40
50' length of heavy duty rubber garden hose $40
50 gallon plastic barrel = free
About 25'of NG pipe and misc fittings $60
never ever ever half to fill up another Co2 or propane tank and produce co2 at a FRACTION of the cost ... Priceless.

(I should note that if I bought the $375 hydrogen unit I would have needed all the stuff above anyways)
Some pics...




ok, I know the gasline looks kludgy at an angle but I won't risk running into it if I come into the room when its dark. The two other pictures show the routing of the water hoses around the room and out a vent to the barrel outside.

At first I cranked the unit up using both burners and maximum burn. The unit shut off at 1500 and then levels promptly kept rising to 2200. So I reduced the level and shut off one of the burners using the "summer time" setting. The Co2 turns on the water pump at 1425, the burner instantly clicks on, runs for about 4 minutes and shuts off at 1525. Levels then rise to about 1700. I put that fan on the ceiling to route co2 towards the controller on the other end of the room.

The unit barely puts off any heat. I would say its equal to a stove on the lowest simmer setting or about 5 big candles.

Just thought I would pass it on. Works like a charm.

Oh what the hell, whats a grow room photo without some god damned bud.... mid 6th week here.

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ur post just paid for the price of my admission to the site lol

coool idea. ever hear of using furnace water to CO2 the roots with? it's free if you use a high efficiency gas central heat furnace... but this? this Rocks haa ha I love it!

Urpgag said:

ur post just paid for the price of my admission to the site lol

coool idea. ever hear of using furnace water to CO2 the roots with? it's free if you use a high efficiency gas central heat furnace... but this? this Rocks haa ha I love it!

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Furnace water? CO2 the roots? Wha?

Umm yeah, why the hell would you want to put co2 in the root zone? Your post is a terrific example of the perils of a website that has no admission

OK, is the sump pump the water pump your connected to your CO2 monitor? Your circulating heater water from from the 50 gal drum via sump pump and heater returns to drum? I assume the drum is buried outside? GENIUS!
I would fill that drum with soft water. My towns water is so damn hard you can almost walk on it. Those without water softeners go through a normal water heater around every 5-8 years. I doubt it would take a lot of calcium to build up and ruin that thankless...
BUT with your configuration you could run a heavy dose of vinegar water or mix in a gal or two of muratic acid (used in pools) to clean out the deposits.

Yep, when water heaters sense flowing water they turn on. Same way the "new" co2 generators do. No wories on hard water, we have wonderfully clean water here. base ppm out of the tap is around 26. I do need to put some chlorine or something in there to keep it from getting scummed up..

The outside barrel thing works awesome really. In was worried it would get hot but I went outside yesterday after a full cycle of making co2 and it was hardly warm.

Very slick. How hot do your summers get? That is when the tank could get warm just from outdoor temps. My area is freaking winter right now and if you want to dig a hole it will take heavy equipment to break the ground.

Summer time temps won't matter at all...because I buried it. The thermal capacity of the ground will keep it cool as bellow about 20" the ground stays a consistent 55 degrees. It will also prevent it from freezing in the winter.

Just brilliant! and plus rep.
Maybe a couple months you report back on your results and if this effects your gas bill much.

I thought about the gas bill thing but really, the burner is pretty damn small. Like smaller than the burner on my stove. I have a gas water heater and gas stove and my gas bill in the summer is $50 month and I take allot of baths and have two kids so I wash a shit load of clothes.

I think that my bill is maybe going to go up like $5-10. Natural gas is hella cheeap. WAAAY cheaper than propane which is a petroleum distillate.

Way cool.

Not hooked up at the moment, but I have NG to the house.

Wet

Let me know if you need help hooking up the NG. Pretty straight forward really but it is an explosive gas so you should take some precautions.

legallyflying said:

Let me know if you need help hooking up the NG. Pretty straight forward really but it is an explosive gas so you should take some precautions.

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Liquid soap is your friend. Put it on all connections, if it bubbles your leaking.

yes. And note that gas lines typically only run at about .5 psi so its not like bubbles are going to explode. They very slowly expand.

Also, don't use the white teflon tape when connecting black iron pipe. You need the yellow stuff designed for gas lines. Other than that its pretty damn straight forward. Of course install a shut off valve near the beginning of your grow room gas line. (the closer to the original line the better).

Aren't there some N02 and monoxide issues here?

Nitrous oxide? No it's completely clean burning. Co2 and water vapor. I have a co sensor in there and it hasn't registered anything.

Good going ! I was very close to buying one of those water cooled units for around $300. The problem I have with Co2 is my room would get too hot without an AC I think. My room gets up to 80 right now without air cooled hoods running and I have good air going in and out. I know you can run hotter temps with CO2. I just dont have a place for an AC nor the extra power. I really like this idea and want it badly.

I thought there might be some kind of issue with a hot water heater and that the guys selling the CO2 do something to make them cleaner ....

Alright legally, i got a couple ? for you. Do you loose the c02 out of that window AC ? are you still running exhaust or just a scrubber filter?

so let me see if I got this right, I'm tring to see if I could make this work for me. So the water pumps turns on pumping the water thru the tankless, it gets heated creating co2 which is exhausted into the grow. Then the heated water is returned to a 55 gal drum. Is that pretty much the cycle??

Do you have a co2 controller/monitor or do you just use timer? If theres a controller it just turns your pump on/off correct.
If your res. drum wasn't burried would you need a water chiller? At least for the hotter summer months it get to be high 90's or 100 where Im at.

sorry for bombarding you with questions I not all that smart???? BUt i do think this could be a sweet set up

Ok. Herr are the answers.
Yes, a little
Scrubber only
Yes, that is the cycle
A ppm controller triggers the pump
A chiller may or may not be required. The warmer the water the warmer the exhaust in your room.

Works pretty sweet though.