Wood furnace owners-UNITE!

[Jags]

And idiot fools that moderate for free.

Hey....wait a minute...

 

[STIHLY DAN]

Since when?

My apologies, seeing there add here and the # of posts just figured they where.

 

[BrotherBart]

Turns out that they are now a sponsor. The boss filled me in this morning. So the apology is mine.

 

[STIHLY DAN]

Turns out that they are now a sponsor. The boss filled me in this morning. So the apology is mine.

Group Hug

 

[BrotherBart]

Half the time I get a red box ad at the bottom asking if I want my arrest record. Like that is something I wouldn't remember. Back in 2005, when we started with Google Adwords, for a month we kept getting one for a feminine hygiene product.

 

[wooddope]

Heating with a defiance volcano here and have the output ducted to a floor register in the kitchen directly below the stove, been that way for roughly 5 yrs.Heats my 1500 sq foot 2 story 1940 era with upgraded windows and fairly well insulated shack pretty well.Upstairs bedrooms are generally 10 degrees cooler than main floor.I have been researching an upgrade for a a year now and thinking about the tundra furnace.I have also read quite a bit about proper heat ducting and realize that return air for the system is important.All of my return air to date has been sucked from the basement and pushed to main floor.My basement ceilings are low and I am tall so setting up proper ducting will be a challenge.I would like to hear from others who may have been in a similar situation and upgraded and how it worked out. Thanks for starting this thread.

 

[sloeffle]

I wouldn't say 70's technology, it's light years ahead from my old furnace. It's a simple control, but a more advanced combustion. I've burned very little wood at night and always have coals hours later after the fire dies down. I wouldn't mind a computer controller which I have thought about retrofitting the smart stove controller to automate the furnace, but I'm only in about 1200 for my furnace so I can't complain. I've increased my burn times and cut my consumption quite a bit from the old.

The combustion efficiency is definitely a lot better than anything from the 70's. But like I said the damper and motor controls could use an update. A HVAC buddy of mine said that most furnace manufacturers stopped using fan limit switches about 20 years ago. They have a computer controlled damper and motor for the Max Caddy so I am not sure why they don't have it in the Caddy.

I should buy an arduino with all of the goodies along with a variable speed DC motor and have one of my co-workers write some Python to control my damper and blower motor.

 

[Badfish740]

I'm running an englander 28-3500 here. I installed it in early February last year when it was cheaper to buy the furnace and insulated ss chimney pipe than it was to get a refill on the propane tank. Its installed at the end of the house in the basement. I ran the duct up and split it into two 6" runs which are tied into the ends of the two plenum runs. I know it's not the right way or most effective way for the heat distribution but it works for now. The gas furnace hasn't burnt a drop of lp since the install and the house stays cozy throughout. I'm heating a single story about 1200 sf ranch. We're planning on a complete tear down of the house in about 5 yrs and rebuilding as a two story. (As the boys all get older the house seems to be getting smaller) My plan is to put in a Kuuma at that time and do all the ducting properly. Then the englander is going into the barn for intermittent/work time heat. I'm also planning on looking into an on demand lp hot water heater for the rebuild but that's a whole nother topic.

Very interested in this because I'm in a similar situation. I'm posting from the maternity ward right now where mom and daughter number two are snoozing I'm looking to turn a 2 bed 1 bath ranch into a 3 bed 2 bath by converring the attached garage to bedrooms and one existing bedroom to a bathroom. The addition will be easy eno ugh but the ductwork will be a little work. The proposed bedrooms will be at the far end of the house from the Englander and the ductwork was hacked up long ago in order to provide headroom in the finished basement.

Flex was used to run supply off of the main trunk to chases on either sidea of the basement. It works OK for heat but there's just enough flow for AC. As a stopgap we have a window unit in the kitchen which helps to even the cooling. The plan is to run a chase up through the floor in our room from the furnace plenum into the attic. From there it will make a 90 degree turn and run the length of the house. Registers will be located in the ceiling (which seems like a better place than low on the wall) and the whole system will be sealed, insulated, and buried in 20" of blown cellulose. Should be much better than what I have now. One thing I want to improve upon is adding a better back flow preventer to avoid wasting ac/oil heat. Right now I have a butterfly type valve but would like to do some kind of gate valve that would be more airtight.

 

[sloeffle]

I'm posting from the maternity ward right now where mom and daughter number two are snoozing

Congrats

 

[lampmfg]

Turns out that they are now a sponsor. The boss filled me in this morning. So the apology is mine.

No worries but we have been a sponsor for a couple of years.

 

[psebowhunter]

Congrats on the new daughter Badfish. We were dealt an interesting hand 6 years ago when we found out our first one was actually going to be our first two. So much for being all prepared, that all went out the window when the doc said twins!! And then we added the third boy 3 years ago.

Anyhow, i don't have a/c to contend with on my setup so that simplifies it for me a bit. And I've got to the point that as long as we're not out of town for any period of time i shut the lp furnace right off and use the wood furnace as my primary. I have two main plenums that run the length of the house with a crossover and just plumbed right into the ends of them. Typically the one end of the house gets warmer than the other but i shut down certain registers and that helps. It's a pretty open floor plan. It works well but I'd be lying if i said i wasn't looking forward to the rebuild and furnace upgrade.

As a side note, there are the nasty hot summer days where I've gone down and switched the englander to manual mode and let the blower push the nice cool basement air upstairs. I keep a dehumidifier running down there with the humidity right around 45-50% so it's a little relief with my redneck a/c!!

 

[Fins59]

I've been heating with a Johnson Energy Systems wood furnace since 1985. My house is a tri-level so am heating 3 floors - total 1800 sq ft, plus it generates a little heat for the additional lower 800 sq ft basement.
Stove is located in the upper basement level so it is very handy. 6 steps down from the kitchen area. Stove is located in center of house.

I have two 8" hot air ducts coming off top of stove. I have 1 duct (5' long) going through above ceiling into upstairs hallway and that heats the bedrooms and bathroom. (Chimney pipe actually goes through bathroom closet so that room gets plenty of heat off chimney) Other duct (6' long) horizontally comes out a stairway and heats kitchen, living room and dining room.
I do not have anything hooked to my natural gas furnace duct work. I tried this one time but the blower could not push the warm air adequately. My present hook up works very well. I think it's due to the short length piping from top of furnace to vents.

I use about 5 full cords per season. Last few years I've been burning oak slab wood. Cheap, easy to cut, not too much splitting.
My stove is located on the upper basement ground level which has a patio door so I wheel my wood carts in door and feed stove off of carts. Very handy.

 

[Badfish740]

Congrats on the new daughter Badfish. We were dealt an interesting hand 6 years ago when we found out our first one was actually going to be our first two. So much for being all prepared, that all went out the window when the doc said twins!! And then we added the third boy 3 years ago.

We are friendly with a family at church that went from three to five in the same manner

As a side note, there are the nasty hot summer days where I've gone down and switched the englander to manual mode and let the blower push the nice cool basement air upstairs. I keep a dehumidifier running down there with the humidity right around 45-50% so it's a little relief with my redneck a/c!!

I see you're in Michigan where I'm guessing the humidity isn't as bad in general? In Jersey that would never work unfortunately. The rear of our house faces directly south and the ceiling has 6" of fiberglass in it-can lighting was installed sometime in the 90s that leaks like a sieve. As a result our A/C is marginal at best combined with the poor ductwork. For the rest of you that are running wood furnaces with central air-could you post some pictures of your ductwork? I'm wondering if I could incorporate some kind of power actuated flapper valve that would close off the feed from my Englander under the following conditions:

A/C on

Oil furnace on

However, I would like the ability to run the furnace fan and the Englander at the same time-when the house is cold the extra velocity/volume afforded by running the furnace fan gets the house warm in a hurry. I'm sure there's someone on here who's better at relays and wiring than I that could figure this out.

 

[DSaulnier]

Hey All,
I'm new to the Wood Furnace thing this year. Running a Firechief FC450, just fired it up a couple weeks ago for the first time and just this past weekend started running it consistently. Absolutely LOVE This thing....curious to see how much wood I'll go through this season but man, it sure beats running my insert and a small woodstove in my basement. I'm actually more excited to see my heating bills once the cold really kicks in to full gear...normal heating system is a Heat Pump with electric strip backup for a 2000sqf farmhouse built in 1896.

 

[brenndatomu]

Runnin a Yukon Husky wood/oil combo here, burn 99.9% wood, oil only when we are gone for more than 12 hrs.