Hi!
This is my first time posting on here! So hello to you all!
We are now the happy owners of a Englander 28-3500 wood furnace Good bye oil !!
Anyway, being that it's rated for 3000sqr feet and our house is about 1900sqr feet we do have some excess capacity, it's a hot air furnace, so whatever storage that we would add on would be a diy thing most likely. now the furnace is intended as an add-on since it's burn time is 8hrs max, but as we get into our maine winter I don't know if that's going to go down as we run it harder. It's all manually controlled draft, not even a bimetal damper so sometimes we're hot and sometimes we're running downstairs to give it another turn or two. I'm not complaining , just thinking about improving it further.
Now I've only had this idea since this morning, and my head's been fogged up with a cold, so feel free to tell me i'm an idiot
If I were to build an insulated metal frame in the basement (the only way down into the basement is by a narrow set of steps that was a tight fit for our furnace) and put in a bladder tank -500gals a bare minimum?- and then take a clean truck radiator (research showed that they're rated 80k-200k btus) of at least 100k btu rating and construct the ducting so that when the blower on the furnace came on a pump would circulate the water through the radiator. and when the furnace was let to go out during warmer times, we could grab some heat from the tank.
Questions:
1. Am I an idiot?
2. Am I the good kind of idiot or the bad kind? Or should I just take more NyQuil and leave you all alone?
3. Would it work at all?
4. How large a tank would we need for just evening out times so we could extend it to 12hr+ heating times?
5. How long could the the tank keep it's heat if it was insulated with at least 3" of foam?
6. Is there a better way of storing heat from this furnace?
Now unless we do improve this furnace, several years down the road we'l probably get a longer burning more automated furnace. We went with this because the furnace was only $1200 from home depot, and it'll pay for it'self real quick with oil $3.00+ a gallon and tree length wood at $130 a cord
Anyway, let me know what you think!
This is my first time posting on here! So hello to you all!
We are now the happy owners of a Englander 28-3500 wood furnace Good bye oil !!
Anyway, being that it's rated for 3000sqr feet and our house is about 1900sqr feet we do have some excess capacity, it's a hot air furnace, so whatever storage that we would add on would be a diy thing most likely. now the furnace is intended as an add-on since it's burn time is 8hrs max, but as we get into our maine winter I don't know if that's going to go down as we run it harder. It's all manually controlled draft, not even a bimetal damper so sometimes we're hot and sometimes we're running downstairs to give it another turn or two. I'm not complaining , just thinking about improving it further.
Now I've only had this idea since this morning, and my head's been fogged up with a cold, so feel free to tell me i'm an idiot
If I were to build an insulated metal frame in the basement (the only way down into the basement is by a narrow set of steps that was a tight fit for our furnace) and put in a bladder tank -500gals a bare minimum?- and then take a clean truck radiator (research showed that they're rated 80k-200k btus) of at least 100k btu rating and construct the ducting so that when the blower on the furnace came on a pump would circulate the water through the radiator. and when the furnace was let to go out during warmer times, we could grab some heat from the tank.
Questions:
1. Am I an idiot?
2. Am I the good kind of idiot or the bad kind? Or should I just take more NyQuil and leave you all alone?
3. Would it work at all?
4. How large a tank would we need for just evening out times so we could extend it to 12hr+ heating times?
5. How long could the the tank keep it's heat if it was insulated with at least 3" of foam?
6. Is there a better way of storing heat from this furnace?
Now unless we do improve this furnace, several years down the road we'l probably get a longer burning more automated furnace. We went with this because the furnace was only $1200 from home depot, and it'll pay for it'self real quick with oil $3.00+ a gallon and tree length wood at $130 a cord
Anyway, let me know what you think!