I'm working on designign an ice flooding rig, and getting power to it is a big challenge. This is remote (middle of a river) so I'm looking to carry enough fuel to flood for a few hours straight, and pump water to refill when I need.
Immersion heaters seem like the way to go, but they're all electric. Is there a similar immersion style heater, that I can run off of propane/diesel/some combustible? I understand I'll probably be throwing efficiency out the window, but that's acceptable here.
Does something like this exist? As I understand it this isn't how gas water heaters work, but there must be use cases for things like this.
Edit: It seems "flooding rig" is too vague.
My intent is to flood (cover with a thin coat of water) a section of ice on a river, so that I can skate on it. This is generally done by a zamboni (large, heavy, expensive, etc.), where hot (or at least warm) water is sent through a distributor bar that trickles a bunch of small streams of water over a wide area, to give a smooth, even coat. Hot water is ideal, but my intent here is to simply get the water warm enough that the nozzles in the distributor bar don't freeze up over time (I'm doing this in ~-20 weather, and pulling water from the river, so it's just barely above freezing)
Best Answer
Something like it does exist!
Wood fired hot tub stoves, commonly known as "snorkel stoves" for reasons that seem obvious to me (or it
might beis a brand name, too.)