props to HVAC

[iron]

this year, we've been running our HVAC air circulation for 55 minutes/hour (not sure why ecobee doesn't let you set the fan for ON, forever).

i have noticed a seemingly significant decrease in the use of wood while burning with our northstar fireplace. we're just over 3 months into the burning season and i'm at about 1.5 cords consumed (normally 6 month burning season @ 4-4.5 cords). we'll see how it all shakes out come year's end, but for now, it feels like we are ahead of the curve from previous 3 years.

i think the house (2300SF) just holds more overall stored heat, so that allows us to let the fire die out in the afternoon to early evening hours before starting a fire for the night. normally, my wife would add 1-2 pieces every 3 hours during the day, but that hasn't been happening this year. our fireplace is at the corner of the house on the upstairs level. in that room, it gets to 74 degrees or so, and the bedrooms on the same floor are in the 70 degree range. basement is in the 68 degree range.

plus, the house feels more comfortable (almost like running HVAC, but with the wood heat feel)

 

[ct01r]

We do something similar. We have a wood furnace in the basement, but we disconnected it from the ductwork so it "only" heats the basement. We keep our HVAC circulating fan all the time, though, so the air in the basement heats the ductwork, which then gets circulated through the whole house.

Sounds like your system is balanced better than ours; our front bedrooms get pretty chilly. We only use the wood furnace when it's bitter cold out, though, and it works well enough that the thermostat to the heat pump turns off for most of the day. Curt

 

[RSNovi]

Just set the fan to on.

 

[jetsam]

Go compare your historical weather, this year vs. last year.

I don't know about the west coast, but on the east coast it has been much warmer this year.

 

[begreen]

I would set the fan to come on for 10 minutes every hour and try that for a few days. No sense having it run continuously if running intermittently does a good job of distributing the air. It will be less wear and tear on the hvac blower and much lower electric usage too.

 

[rosem]

I would set the fan to come on for 10 minutes every hour and try that for a few days. No sense having it run continuously if running intermittently does a good job of distributing the air. It will be less wear and tear on the hvac blower and much lower electric usage too.

I think it's less wear to just keep it running. Most issues are caused by the spike on startup. For sure not cheap to keep it running though. Haha.

 

[weatherguy]

Go compare your historical weather, this year vs. last year.

I don't know about the west coast, but on the east coast it has been much warmer this year.

So far it has but the winters not even half over, we have real winter coming next week, we'll see how long its last and how bad it is.

 

[begreen]

I think it's less wear to just keep it running. Most issues are caused by the spike on startup. For sure not cheap to keep it running though. Haha.

The blower is designed for thousands of cycles. It would experience the same wear if there were no wood heat.