Wood Furnace Blower Mount Back or Side?

[1parkpointer]

Have a small dilemma with location of a Blower on a wood Furnace. I recently got a Yukon-Eagle super jack wood furnace that will be added onto my oil-fired hot air system. I opted for an add on blower, rather than use the blower on my existing oil furnace. The furnace was ordered with a cut out on one side for mounting the blower. When I opened up the crate and began to assemble the furnace parts, I noticed that the back of the furnace also has an opening (covered up with a larger plate bolted to the back) and all of the mounting holes are pre-drilled, unlike the side panel, which simply came with the large blower opening and no pre-drilled mounting holes.
My question is, does anyone out there know of either a Big Jack or Super Jack wood furnace that has a blower attached to the back? If so, any comments of effective heat output verses the blower mounted on either side? I am just curious, as I can mount it either way.

 

[laynes69]

Either way should be okay. If it has large opening on the sides, then I would think that is for series installation. Much more efficient in my eyes. If not back with the blower would also be okay. You installing parallel?

 

[1parkpointer]

I will be setting the wood furnace up in parallel with hopes of running in dead of winter as stand alone. In theory, the plan would have me install a damper between the oil furnace opening and distribution plenum. Unfortunately, it would be require complete dismantling of the distribution plenum in order to accomplish that. Space being a big problem, so I've reconsidered the plan.
Now when the duct work is complete, I will have the wood hot air plumbed into the plenum above the oil hot air furnace. In the cold air return duct work, I will install a diverter damper. Hopefully, the cold air return for the oil furnace could be shut down and diverted to the wood furnace, completing the cycle.

 

[laynes69]

Sounds like your on track. I have my usstove 1500 in series, and I have my propane furnace off. I just use the blower from the propane furnace to push the heat through the woodfurnaces air jacket, works well. We only need the LP when it gets around -10 at night, even then, the Lp only runs a few times throught the night. Good luck.

 

[1parkpointer]

Thanks, I've decided to mount it on the side to give the flue pipe clean-out on the rear of the furnace more room. It would have dumped just above the cold air return plenum. At clean out times, it might have been messy. I need to look at something for a while from different viewpoints to see the plus and minus sides.