Please tear my ideas to shreds, I'm here to learn.
I'm building a wood burner, situated outside to heat a coil and pump hot water around a 2 story house with 12 radiators. The idea was always to use an electric 12v pump with backup battery but it's unusual in our region to have a full seven days per week of electricity. When we get our bad winters, -20c, an electric system would be as much use as a chocolate fireguard when the trees start coming down onto overhead supply lines.
I've had the idea to incorporate a boiler in the designs of the burner for a couple of months and I've already done a lot of research (Sometimes to the dismay of my wife)
what I'm most interested in at present is water reclamation. Separate to the radiator circuit I want steam generated by my boiler to power an engine which will turn a crank for the radiator pump and also a pully to turn a fan which will cool a radiator (from a tractor) which the steam engine exhausts will be sent through to condensate and hopefully be reintroduced into the system. So far my idea is to have the cold water tank at the same level as where I want the boiler filled to. They'll be separated by a clack valve so when there's nothing inside the boiler, the pressure of the water in the cold tank will push water inside the boiler, when the water inside the boiler gets hot enough to produce steam and the pressure is greater than the cold water tank, the clack valve will be closed and pressure will be increased until it can do work.
If this makes any sense to you, please could you point me in the direction of something similar so I can focus my research. It doesn't need to be finished until next winter so I have plenty of time to read it. Sorry if I have butchered a lot of terminology.
