Wood Burning Furnace, It's done...I'm Warm!

[JSUnlimited]

Wood Burning Furnace, It\'s done...I\'m Warm!

Just to follow up with a couple of posts from earlier,

Add-On Wood Burning Furnace Install.

and

Add-On Wood Burning Furnace Install - *UPDATE*


I've been burning non-stop for a couple of weeks and this furnace keeps things nice and warm, not to mention that the gas furnace has not run at all! We've kept a constant 71-72 degrees throughout our 2500+ sq ft home. Before on gas we only kept it at 68, how did we keep from freezing to death!?

Hopefully I have not driven anyone nuts with these posts but I did it with the intentions on showing anyone who was interested in such project. This site has been helpful to me and hopefully I can return that assistance to someone else.

Here's the best part....

 

[JSUnlimited]

Re: Wood Burning Furnace, It\'s done...I\'m Warm!

Here's a pic of some of the wiring that controls the electric low voltage dampers, connects to the thermostat on the wall, and to the gas furnace.

 

[JSUnlimited]

Re: Wood Burning Furnace, It\'s done...I\'m Warm!

This is one of two (one is on the other furnace) of the low-voltage dampers that open and close depending on which furnace runs.

 

[JSUnlimited]

Re: Wood Burning Furnace, It\'s done...I\'m Warm!

And lastly, here's a small rack that my step-son and I built to wheel over to the bottom of the steps when carrying in wood, it helps keep all of the debris off the floor.

 

[Deerlope]

Re: Wood Burning Furnace, It\'s done...I\'m Warm!

Nothing like being warm and not breaking the bank doing it. Nice looking job, wood rack and all.

 

[Ford850]

Re: Wood Burning Furnace, It\'s done...I\'m Warm!

Great idea on the wood rack. That would work perfect for me too. Thanks for the idea.

 

[JSUnlimited]

Re: Wood Burning Furnace, It\'s done...I\'m Warm!

Ford850,

Thanks for the comments. This originally started as the basic log rack kit from Home Depot. The kit is the steel tubes/brackets and you add your own 2 by 4's. I just made it wider and put a floor on it plus added some HD casters and it works great. I can hold aprox. a face cord on it although it gets hard to push around!

 

[bhostasa]

Mega_Me,

Great job on this project. I have the same stove in my basement, I'm trying to decide the best way to utilize it. Any advice would be appreciated.

We live in a ranch with a walk out basement (approx. 4,000 total sf). There is a gas furnace for the basement and a gas furnace for the main floor. There are some runs from the basement furnace that go to the upstairs and I want to tie into that duct run to heat both the upstairs and downstairs.

Right now, the wood burner is downstairs, connected to a chimney, but not connected to any duct work. It heats the basement up to about 85 before the heat trickles up the stairs and keeps the main floor around 67.

A couple of ideas I'm kicking around:

1. Tie into the basement heat duct and run the blower on the wood burner and the blower on the gas furnace.
2. Leave the wood burner unattached to any duct work and run the downstairs fan to try and pull the heat upstairs.
3. Tie into the cold air return in the basement and run only the fan on the gas furnace to try to distribute the heat.

I'm not sure which would work best. As I said, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[scott_vt]

Afternoon Mega Me,
Very nice install ! Very neat !

Ive got my wood stove in the basement, the basement is between 72-74 and about 68 on the first floor, much hotter than that and I just fall asleep all the time !

 

[Donman]

Can you tell me if the low voltage dampers are absolutely necessary or could you just connect to the warm air and cold air plenums without dampers? Is there enough resistance thru the other furnace, blower and filter to keep from circulating extra warm air in a short loop thru the other furnace and back to the unit that is 'on' instead of thru the rooms and then thru the return air. I recall seeing installations without the dampers that seemed to work OK. Did your installation instructions call for the dampers?