New Pacific Energy FP30 Installation Progress Thread

[mcdougy]

Checking in, how is your design performing? Did you end up ducting air form a different room for circulation? I'm working on a similar plan (3200sqft Ranch w/ partial walkout basement), looking to maximize heat circulation in winter. What did you put into your design to evenly heat the house and distant rooms? Cheers!

I did not end up putting a passive vent in. Our master bedroom is right beside the stove room more or less .....so keeping the doors open is all we do and it works well. We run both the main fan within the unit and the remote duct fan into the basement at the same time often... I would consider looking into a 3rd party remote duct fan if your planning on this application. The oem is noisier than it needs to be imo. Maybe if you posted some sort of floor plan of what your thinking I could give you some ideas of what to expect. Also what the insulation and sealing will be like in your new home. I will say that I think you will be happy with a fp30 as ours has heated our entire home comfortably (74ish) and solely. Our propane furnace does not run at all unless we make it run intentionally. With good insulation it will work great.

 

[Radarbait]

I did not end up putting a passive vent in. Our master bedroom is right beside the stove room more or less .....so keeping the doors open is all we do and it works well. We run both the main fan within the unit and the remote duct fan into the basement at the same time often... I would consider looking into a 3rd party remote duct fan if your planning on this application. The oem is noisier than it needs to be imo. Maybe if you posted some sort of floor plan of what your thinking I could give you some ideas of what to expect. Also what the insulation and sealing will be like in your new home. I will say that I think you will be happy with a fp30 as ours has heated our entire home comfortably (74ish) and solely. Our propane furnace does not run at all unless we make it run intentionally. With good insulation it will work great.

Thanks for the reply. I'm glad the FP30 is working well, and it definitely sounds promising in my application as well. Main floorplan and West elevation attached. Downstairs will be partially finished with a rec room below the living room. This is still a conceptual work in progress and doesn't reflect changes made to the deck location, window configuration, and overall height of the building/walls/ceiling--lessons learned thankfully before starting construction. Open floor plan, with open stairwell, R49 ceiling (no attic planned) and R27+ walls, well sealed with foam and blown fiberglass. Should be a nice tight container with gas furnace, but I want make sure I can efficiently move air around in the summer and winter. The HVAC "pros" weren't a ton of help as a consultant, especially with thinking outside of their realm of expertise in standard installations. I know the high ceilings and open stairwell are a liability; main goal is pushing/pulling air to the bedrooms in the corners without overheating the living room. I've seen it done in a simpler application, using the height of ceiling and well placed fan to move air across the house like water in a canal (only upside down!) form high to low pressure. I was exploring the ducting idea before I discovered the FP30, so it mostly reinforces my belief that it can be done well, but maybe on a smaller scale, assuming heat loss in the duct itself. Perhaps it's best applied when moving air up and downstairs within 20 feet of the fireplace versus any appreciable lateral distance.

 

[mcdougy]

Beautiful home you have on paper there.......what are hopes and intentions of the stove? Help out heat sometimes or maximum output 24/7 to carry as much heatload as possible?

 

[Radarbait]

Beautiful home you have on paper there.......what are hopes and intentions of the stove? Help out heat sometimes or maximum output 24/7 to carry as much heatload as possible?

Intent is for the fireplace to carry most of the heating load. We're going to orient the house to gain solar in the winter, so mostly burning in the evening or early morning to maintain all day. Hopefully I won't need 24/7 burning, as Colorado is usually sunny in the daytime, and in the 20's (F) at night. Our current config as the fireplace right next to the stove, so our master bedroom is usually too hot, and the distant bedroom is cold. I'm mostly looking for simple ways to create the circulation so that warm air from the fireplace doesn't simply pool in the living room its ceiling. Many seem to suggest running the furnace blower in fan-only mode, but I haven't had great experience with that in the past, as it seems to marginally elevate temps in distant rooms. I've seen a house with a high ceiling in a hallway. Using a ceiling fan near the fireplace, the owner could push air against the ceiling (high pressure on ceiling) and channel it down about 30ft of hallway where it could be pushed back down (low pressure on ceiling) and into opposing bedrooms. Worked quite well.

 

[mcdougy]

Intent is for the fireplace to carry most of the heating load. We're going to orient the house to gain solar in the winter, so mostly burning in the evening or early morning to maintain all day. Hopefully I won't need 24/7 burning, as Colorado is usually sunny in the daytime, and in the 20's (F) at night. Our current config as the fireplace right next to the stove, so our master bedroom is usually too hot, and the distant bedroom is cold. I'm mostly looking for simple ways to create the circulation so that warm air from the fireplace doesn't simply pool in the living room its ceiling. Many seem to suggest running the furnace blower in fan-only mode, but I haven't had great experience with that in the past, as it seems to marginally elevate temps in distant rooms. I've seen a house with a high ceiling in a hallway. Using a ceiling fan near the fireplace, the owner could push air against the ceiling (high pressure on ceiling) and channel it down about 30ft of hallway where it could be pushed back down (low pressure on ceiling) and into opposing bedrooms. Worked quite well.

Right....our entire house is pretty even heat wise with the fp30. The stove/family room for sure being the warmest. It is usually 4-5°F warmer than the furthest room on the main floor and usually 10° warmer than the basement bedrooms. I run the furnace fan.... mostly because I always have ? My thinking that moving air is moving air???And think it helps with the basement bedrooms. I would say that we must have the "river" effect going on here, but our layout is much different than yours. Somehow in the 1000sqft of basement that is not drywalled but is fully sprayfoamed with the door closed it maintains the same temp as the basement bedrooms?? I attribute this from the furnace fan effect but do not know for sure?? I will take a pic of our floor plan for comparison. Note that we did put up a "curtain" at the bottom of the open stairwell in a attempt to keep the kids basement rooms warmer. Not sure if it works but it makes the DW feel better that we are trying to keep them warmer. 75° stove room and 65° basement is decent in my opinion for 6200sqft of space with high ceilings and probably over glazed with 366 glass.
We have a 5' ceiling fan in the stove room, the only ceiling fan in the house.
Sorry about the bad drawings,they were my working set when I was framing the house....