Our wood stove has a built in water jacket, so during the winter months we keep water in a large tank that is connected to the wood stove. The water is gravity fed into the water jacket inside the wood stove. As the water heats up from the fire, it travels up the top pipe into the water tank. This thermocycling gradually heats all of the water in the tank.
In the summer months we heat water on our induction stove top for cooking. When taking a shower we either heat a large black pot of water outside on a sunny day, or we use our 2000W Portable Immersion Water Heater. We fill up a bucket with 4 gallons of water, drop the water heater into it, and then plug it in. The water heater must be immersed before it is plugged in. We start a timer for 15 minutes and use an infrared thermometer gun to check the temperature. Once the water is about 105 degrees F, we unplug the water heater and set it aside.