Hot blast wood furnace tied into return Using oil heat as backup heating with wood

Here is our wood furnace. It's tied into our oil forced air heat. 4000sf (including basement). I set the oil thermostat at 65. With the wood furnace running, the house is always over 70. During the day you feed it every 3-5 hours depending on the wood.It will burn when full from about 10:00pm to 3:00 am. As the house cools down, if it goes below 65 the oil will kick on. There are usually coals in the morning to throw fresh wood on and warm back up!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Wood
• furnace
• stove
• heat
• hot
• blast
• alternative
• energy
• cheap

[pollarofamily2005]

I have a Hot Blast 1557M and I was wondering what size are you using for your cold air return to your blowers? Should I buy there filter box or just make my own?

[AtomicHouseBand]

@pollarofamily2005 12 inch round duct, I had a local H-Vac guy make my filter box and the box around the blowers

[kimmer6]

Very good. How much trouble is it getting the wood into the basement? Is there any smoke visible out the stack? Here in Calif we have to check for Burn or No Burn days or face a big fine for burning. Wood is expensive here. Which has more BTU's the oil burner or the wood furnace? Its nice to know you have backup. I hope you have a generator handy to keep the works running when the lights go out.

[AtomicHouseBand]

@kimmer6 I should have pointed out it's a walkout basement and the door you see goes directly outside, so bringing in wood is easy. As long as the wood is dry it burns clean with no smoke, and I also have a generator with transfer switch in case the power goes off. The oil heat will heat up the house faster, but keeps having to run because it just heats up the air. Having the furnace in the basement spreads radiant heat throughout,, giving the house a warmer more even heat!

[CenterTree777]

Question: at :16 sec you state that the 2 lines coming out of the furnace tap into your "Return duct". Is that correct?? I don't understand that at all.

Also, just wondering, does that unit get very hot to the touch? (sides and top)? Thanks!!

[MWFrontier]

Hey great vid'

I did one for my Daka wood stove.

[kenfo0]

There are easier ways to do this w/o the expense and dependency on electricity and you will also get a longer burn time.