Suppose you
have a gas central stove (boiler)
that heats a hot water radiator in different rooms of your house. It works by
burning natural gas, forming a line or grid of hot gas jets on top of the water
flowing through a network of pipes. As water is pumped through the pipes, the
heat energy is absorbed and heated. This arrangement we call through the heat
exchanger: the gas jet cools and the water heats up.
A heat exchanger is a
device that allows heat from a fluid (liquid or gas) to flow into a second
fluid (another liquid or gas) without the two fluids having to mix or come into
direct contact. If that's not completely clear, consider this. In theory, we
could get the heat from a burst of gas just by pouring cold water on it, but
then the fire would go out! The important principle of the heat exchanger is that it
transfers heat without transferring heat-carrying fluids.