# Wood furnace blower and ducting



## Shipper50 (Jan 19, 2008)

I just had a Englander wood burning furnace installed in my basement and I have a question on the amount of air being pushed into my duct work.

I see the blower on the furnace has around 850 cfm but can I help it with running my fan in my heat pump? The install has the 8 inch discharge in the very far end of the trunk of my duct work and the heat pump and fan are at the other end of the main ducting.

I have found if I run my fan only from my heat pump I get another 2-3 degrees in heat on a thermometer I use for reading the temps in my house. I just don't want to over run the duct if that is possible. I have duct board ducting if that is what it is called.

I wish I would have put in this furnace before I spent $3800 on a new Regency I3100 installed that is undersized for my house, I went from keeping the temps in my house at 63-65 to 72-74 after installing the furnace and I don't have to run my heat pump which is a electricity eater.

Thanks for any help,
Shipper


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## wdc1160 (Jan 19, 2008)

Shipper50 said:
			
		

> I just had a Englander wood burning furnace installed in my basement and I have a question on the amount of air being pushed into my duct work.
> 
> I see the blower on the furnace has around 850 cfm but can I help it with running my fan in my heat pump? The install has the 8 inch discharge in the very far end of the trunk of my duct work and the heat pump and fan are at the other end of the main ducting.
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The normal average everyday duct board can take very high pressure changes >20PSI and
wind speeds faster than 60 FPS.

But, There are different kinds of Hoosiers, you didn't hook up a tractor PTO to your heat pump did you???  


Bill


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## atlarge54 (Jan 19, 2008)

Is your Regency heat pump air to air and what did it replace? One temp. sensitive areas is the drip pan under the evaporator coil. It's not normally designed to take high temps. Your air handler probably has a variable speed blower. You could use a common 3-way light switch mounted outside your handler to give two different blower speeds available at the flip of a switch. Make sure one is the normal speed used for A/C.


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## Shipper50 (Jan 19, 2008)

ABGWD4U said:
			
		

> Shipper50 said:
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I dont have a tractor with a pto, should I buy one?

Shipper


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## Shipper50 (Jan 19, 2008)

atlarge54 said:
			
		

> Is your Regency heat pump air to air and what did it replace? One temp. sensitive areas is the drip pan under the evaporator coil. It's not normally designed to take high temps. Your air handler probably has a variable speed blower. You could use a common 3-way light switch mounted outside your handler to give two different blower speeds available at the flip of a switch. Make sure one is the normal speed used for A/C.



My Regency I3100 is a fireplace insert. It doesnt heat my house at all and the dealer who sold it to me in Franklin Indiana said it would. So now the wood furnace is doing its job just fine thank you.

Shipper


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## wdc1160 (Jan 19, 2008)

Shipper50 said:
			
		

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Yah, but his question is still a good one.  Does your heatpump use air or water.   air to air-- or water to air.  he is inquiring about the drip pan?

Don't get a tractor with a PTO for this purpose

Also, don't buy stuff from vendors in Franklin IN  -- brings you nothing but trouble


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## atlarge54 (Jan 19, 2008)

Ok, my bad. When you were talking about fan only on heat pump I just assumed you were using the heat pump. I put in a new furnace and A/C in last summer and the evap. had to be safe distance from the furnace. One reason for this was to protect the drip pan from excess heat. Hope this off topic doesn't get us expelled from the boiler room.


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## Shipper50 (Jan 19, 2008)

ABGWD4U said:
			
		

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Are you saying the fireplace dealer in Franklin IN that has been in bussiness for 33 years that sold me my fireplace insert that he said would heat my house with no problem is trouble? Gee I wish I would have asked you before going there and spending $3850 dollars and not getting anything more than a response of talk to the Regency company.

Shipper


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## laynes69 (Jan 19, 2008)

Using a heatpumps fan, or furnace fan can help push air. The problem with it is the air coming from the wood furnace may be 130 degrees, and the air coming from the heatpump, or whatever you are using would be 60 to 70 degrees. It would cool the heated air too much resulting in little heating to the home. I have seen people put larger fans on woodfurnaces to help in the heating. I will say I have 1200 cfms of air going around my firebox, and with 400 degree temps above my loading door, I can push 120 to 130 degree air through the home. There is one thing that I have always wondered about those units. They are rated for quite a bit of square footage, how can they heat the square footage that they claim, with 1 8" duct?


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## Shipper50 (Jan 19, 2008)

laynes69 said:
			
		

> Using a heatpump fan, or furnace fan can help push air. The problem with it is the air coming from the wood furnace may be 130 degrees, and the air coming from the heatpump, or whatever you are using would be 60 to 70 degrees. It would cool the heated air too much resulting in little heating to the home. I have seen people put larger fans on woodfurnaces to help in the heating. I will say I have 1200 cfms of air going around my firebox, and with 400 degree temps above my loading door, I can push 120 to 130 degree air through the home. There is one thing that I have always wondered about those units. They are rated for quite a bit of square footage, how can they heat the square footage that they claim, with 1 8" duct?



I am new to the wood furnace use, but I do know for a fact, that it heats my house much better than the insert I bought with a dealers recommendation that the insert would do the job. I have found that using my heat pump fan raises the temp in the house at least 5 degrees over just using the blower on the wood furnace.

I wonder if having duct board ducts cause the air that is moving along to be slowed down some? I would think having a smooth surface to move air would be much better than a rough surface like duct board. Kinda like waxing a car to increase mileage.

As for the one 8 inch duct being able to heat, it cost me as I have said in the other posts $3850 to find out the furnace was the way to go in the first place. Now all I have to do is live long enough to recoup some of the expense of putting all this in my house.

Shipper


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## rsnider (Jan 20, 2008)

when your talking about a heat pump blower that's wrong the heat pump is the unit outside your house. the electric furnace inside is what is helping push the air from the wood furnace. right now you have a electric furnace a wood furnace and outside a heat pump. the heat pump just warms the air in the electric furnace to a certain temp and the electric coils do the rest on the really cold days. you will now when that is, the air will be allot hotter with just electric and the electric meter outside will be spinning faster than that fan on the furnace. ha ha. but what your saying should work with getting the temps up by pushing more air with the electric furnace blower on. you may want to do what was stated earlier by putting a bigger blower on the wood furnace that way you don't have 2 blower on at the same time. my cousin wants to do this with his house by putting a add on wood furnace onto his system. sounds like your on the right track with this wood furnace.


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## BrotherBart (Jan 20, 2008)

Forum member Mike Holton, the customer service manager at England's stove works, has said many times here that the furnace was designed with using the central heating system fan in conjunction with the blower on the wood furnace in mind. The blower on the furnace isn't powerful enough to do the job of moving enough air through all of that ductwork by itself.


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## johnsopi (Jan 20, 2008)

I have a yukon wood furnace and a oil furnace/cental air unit. I only use both fan during the sumer to push the cold air around. Which work great. I love my wood furnace, all room nice and warm. No bib drop from one room to another.


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## reaperman (Jan 20, 2008)

My wood furnace blower has three fan speed settings.  1150, 1500, and 1800cfm, with 12" ducts.  There is quite a difference between the amount of air coming out of the registers from low to high speed.  On low, it seems hardly noticeable on the far end ducts, the register just feels hot.  I use the low setting most of the time, but lately its been sub-zero here so I'm using medium.  On high, that much air seems to cool the furnace off more, so the fan cycles on and off more than with the other settings.  But a 850cfm fan, to me, seems like it may need some help.  Especially for the register vents furthest away from the furnace.  

They do make booster duct fans to aid in just what you are describing.  I've never seen on work but have read about them.  Here is a link to one of many booster fans.  http://www.hvacquick.com/howto_boos...ium=cpc&utm_term=ductfans&utm_campaign=resgen


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## laynes69 (Jan 20, 2008)

I had forgot with the englander only having 1 8inch duct coming off of it, a bigger fan would cause too much pressure on the fan. The life would greatly be reduced. Now if the air is hot enough that it can be cut with colder air helping to push it, then I guess thats how it works. I have my furnace in series, And I have 3 8" ducts going into my furnace and out the top, which still isn't enough. Its a different furnace though, and some modifications done to it.


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## kieth4548 (Jan 22, 2008)

BrotherBart said:
			
		

> Forum member Mike Holton, the customer service manager at England's stove works, has said many times here that the furnace was designed with using the central heating system fan in conjunction with the blower on the wood furnace in mind. The blower on the furnace isn't powerful enough to do the job of moving enough air through all of that ductwork by itself.



I spoke to the tech dept. when I first got mine a month ago and they told me not to run my central fan. I have tried it and when I do it cools the air down so much it's cold when it comes out the vents. My stove temp measured from the front runs around 375-400 degrees. The blower alone on my stove works just great. I am heating both my house and basement (for my kids) which is a total of 3100 sq. ft. and my house usually stays around 77 degrees. Sometimes I have to open windows to cool it back down. Just the other night it got down to 4 degrees outside and i was a nice 75 in the house. I get about 6-7 hours of burn time.


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