hot water heater furnace?

scytzoh

Active Member
a couple people told me in there warehouse's they have used hotwater heaters furnace exaust for co2 . im thinking of puttting somthing in the pipe to catch some have a inline fane lightly pulling som to my room. good idea? im sure someones got info and\or horror stories
 

VictorVIcious

Well-Known Member
welcome to the forum. doing this will kill you. Your hot water heater furnace exhaust puts out carbon monoxide. Worst head ache I ever had, was from having a pipe fall off a water heater at work. We had one girl pass out. Do not do this. VV
 

scytzoh

Active Member
so what does co2 burners have that make the propane it burns co2 and not carbon monoxide. i thoug
 

VictorVIcious

Well-Known Member
If I knew that one I would make one instead of buying one. I do know that a water heaters exhaust can kill you. I have never forgotten that smell. And its not the carbon monoxide you smell because its odorless, colorless and tasteless. VV
 

scytzoh

Active Member
what does it smell like? i thought the gas only smelled before combustion? i dont smell n e thing in my house wouldnt we all be able to smell it considering the pipe are not sealed right where th pipe and heater conect?
 

VictorVIcious

Well-Known Member
Heat rises, that is just science. Its not sealed so air is drawn in to replace the hot air that rises throught the chimney and out of your house. Do what you want. VV
 

mockingbird131313

Well-Known Member
CO2 is the fizzy stuff in soda pop. Carbon Monoxide (CO?) is the deadly stuff in car exhaust. Unvented gas flame water heaters will kill you. Some house space heaters are so efficient that they do not vent in carbon monoxide.
 

butterflykisses

Well-Known Member
i have a zero carbon monixide furnace co2 generators also need to be vented to exhaust the carbon monixide they extract the dioxide and exhaust the monoxide
 

rothbardian

Active Member
I vent a gas clothes dryer into the house during the winter without it ever triggering the carbon monoxide detector. Fine lint particles can trigger the smoke detector, so don't have the detector right next to the vent.

I found this thread after thinking of this too. I was thinking of using a 'T' fitting so the the water heater would still vent to the outside in addition to a fan pulling air from the exhaust pipe. I would like to know about anybody that has done this in a lived in house, not a warehouse. Aren't the water heaters, furnaces and boilers much more efficient in their burning now days? New houses are often built with only a vent pipe rather than a chimney.

Nobody should consider doing this without carbon monoxide detectors on every level of the house.
 

grow1620

Well-Known Member
I've looked into this a little and from my understanding..

A burner or co2 generator completely burns all the gas efficiantly creating pure co2, the exhaust from your furnace or waterheater doesn't burn the gas very efficiently so it exhausts a mix of CO (carbonmonoxide) and co2 (carbondioxide) the CO would be harmful to you as well as your plants and this is why so many ppl recommend against it.

The CO2 is heavier then the CO (44 vs 28 ), I'm currently looking into a way to easily/cheaply separate the 2 gasses.

Another option would be to somehow "purify" the channeled air into pure CO2, I'm not exactally sure how...this is all in theory but maybe runnning it through a heated line (yeh probably dangerous) or some oither means to heat the channeled air to combust 100% of the CO.

I STRONGLY reccomend that anyone that experiments with any co/co2 exhaust properly test the air regularly to make sure you don't kill yourself, or your plants ;)

ideas? input? flames?;-)
 

OregonMeds

Well-Known Member
Great idea if there's a way to make it work. I'd like to implement something like this along with recirculating the heat from my lights into the HVAC system...

What about the newest and most efficient water heaters on the market? If more efficient combustion is possible where there is no monoxide wouldn't they employ that just for the extra efficiency?

I'm very interested, no flames from me. If any are efficient enough I'm sure I could work out a way to wire it into a co2 meter to control whether the exhaust is vented outside or inside based on co2 levels in the grow and wired with a safety monoxide detector to force venting outside and trip a warning light if monoxide levels get too high.

Might sound like a lot of work and expense but after that initial cost and setup it's free co2 for life that you would have just wasted anyway.
 

rothbardian

Active Member
With CO2 being heavier than the atmosphere and CO being lighter, I decided to replace the venting coming off of the furnace and water heater so that the exhaust runs into a vertical 'T' that vents up to the chimney and down to toward the floor. I have a 4 inch inline duct fan that blows the air from the down pipe through flexible foil ducting into my room. It is warm moist air, so I am getting some added heat that would otherwise be lost up the chimney. This is something nice in a cool basement. And it is also nice to hopefully use a little less gas with gas prices what they are.

I think I'll continue this if carbon monoxide does not become a problem. I am, of course, using a carbon monoxide detector near the setup. Anybody trying to separate CO2 from exhaust air should invest in a CO detector. It wouldn't be nice to have your experiment kill you.

I'll try to post back with my results. My room isn't totally setup right now. I am using a closet as my plants are still fairly small. I just connected this Monday evening.

This will be a great method of boosting CO2 levels if it works. I didn't find a whole lot about this after Googling "grow room" "water heater". I did find this thread though.
 
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