# Hooking up a Drolet Tundra



## jpainterr (Jan 10, 2015)

Hi guys first post, long time lurker. Sorry for my crude use of paint. In your opinions can I hook up my new Tundra like the drawing shows?


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## laynes69 (Jan 10, 2015)

Looks okay to me, there's duct clearances you need to maintain. You should have a backdraft damper somewhere in or around the plenum of the central furnace. This way the wood furnace doesn't backfeed thru the central furnace.


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## DoubleB (Jan 10, 2015)

What happens in a power outage?  I'd give some thought to whether gravity flow alone, with just a foot or two of height of hot air for buoyancy, is going to open those backdraft dampers in your 8" ducts and provide some cool air to keep the Tundra from getting too hot.  I admit, though, that I don't have mine connected that way, so I can't say it won't work.

I've also seen other posts on here about a/c coils going bad by getting too hot from the wood furnace hot air.  If you put the backdraft damper that Laynes69 mentions between the a/c coil and the wood furnace hot air, that should alleviate that concern.


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## laynes69 (Jan 10, 2015)

I wouldn't recommend spring loaded dampers in the 8" ducts, just manual dampers. As long as the woodfurnace is being used, those dampers remain open.


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## jholman05 (Jan 30, 2015)

That's a very similar setup to mine. I tried to "design" a system that could rather seamlessly switch between my wood heat and my 95% propane furnace without user input flipping dampers.  I used two 8" backdraft dampers near the main plenum in the ducts coming from the drolet, then used a 24x24 backdraft damper in the main plenum just over the ac coil.  When the wood furnace blower kicks on the backdraft damper for the propane furnace closes and vise versa.  There were spring adjustments on the 24x24 damper to lessen the amount of air required to open it which I made as light as possible.  For the 8" backdraft dampers I cut the springs so they can swing open via the heat stack effect in case of a power outage when I'm not there to tend to it. The dampers also face slightly downward so when neither furnace is running they're in the naturally open position, and as soon as the propane/ac blower kicks on they close.  If I need to heat the basement or want to heat the house up quickly I pull the two 8" ducts up and off the drolet and place them to the side and run both furnaces.


For summer usage I did add a manual damper into the return for the wood furnace that I can close.

Complete system








8" RSK-8 backdraft damper bought from ebay for $25 x 2  Make sure to place the pivot vertical and not shoot any screws in to stop the opening of the damper.




24"x24" backdraft damper bought from grainger for $60?




Went ahead and test the draft while I had a hole drilled for the flue temp gauge, I hooked it up "backwards" so I could get the gauge to register what I needed.








This is about the highest reading I've seen on my temp gauge.  Typically it's between 180-450 depending if it's inducing a burn or in it's dormant state.


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## maple1 (Jan 30, 2015)

Dang - that's a nice clean looking setup & install there.

How's the Drolet working for you?


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## sloeffle (Jan 30, 2015)

I agree, nice looking install.


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## jholman05 (Jan 30, 2015)

Thanks guys, I've been in the process of remodeling the entire house since I purchased it in late 2013.  I needed to have heat for this winter so I completely replaced the worn out gas furnace/ac that was there as well as all the duct.  Hopefully I'll finally be able to move in here in the next few months.

With that said I have only kept the house at 55 when I'm not there working on it and 65 while working on it. I'm quite impressed with the low wood consumption when comparing this to my brother's as well as my dad's smoke dragons.  I'm living right down the road so when I'm burning I'll load it before I go to work, when I get home and usually around 9 at night and it has no problem keeping up.  I'm really interested in seeing how it will do overnight once I start living there. 

I work a lot in AutoCad and Revit and was able to model the house and hvac system which helped visualize the system and allowed me to order exactly what I needed.


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## rogdan (Feb 5, 2015)

jholman05
How many sq ft home and basement are you heating?


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## jholman05 (Feb 5, 2015)

1300 sqft basement 1300 sqft main level, 700 sqft second level. No registers for the basement just radiant heat from stove and ducts, which keeps it as warm as the main level. Cape cod style home with R14 walls, R19 between first and second lecel and R29 in attic. I have the ductwork available to turn off a manual damper to the second level if I want. Makes it much easier to heat the main level.


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## bedrock1 (Feb 5, 2015)

jholman05 said:


> 1300 sqft basement 1300 sqft main level, 700 sqft second level. No registers for the basement just radiant heat from stove and ducts, which keeps it as warm as the main level. Cape cod style home with R14 walls, R19 between first and second lecel and R29 in attic. I have the ductwork available to turn off a manual damper to the second level if I want. Makes it much easier to heat the main level.


hi how u find the furnace. i have a drolet heat max not happy with it


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## maple1 (Feb 5, 2015)

Bedrock, you should start your own thread and load it with info about your install, including pictures. You should get some help then.


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## bedrock1 (Feb 5, 2015)

maple1 said:


> Bedrock, you should start your own thread and load it with info about your install, including pictures. You should get some help then.


im have trouble loading pictures on my computer


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