Hand Fired Hot Air Furnace

 
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LDPosse
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Post by LDPosse » Thu. May. 01, 2014 5:16 pm

So over the course of this winter, I have ceased burning my DS1500 Circulator. I moved out of my house, and in with my Finace! Our place is in Tower City, so we are surrounded by coal, but the house has oil heat! :mad: Using the DS1500 won't really work in this house, because there is no way for the air to circulate effectively. The basement is totally closed off from the 1st floor.

The house is 2 stories with the basement exposed in the rear of the house. There is currently about 1500 sq ft living space. We are putting on a small addition this summer, which will increase that to about 1800 sq ft. The attic is finished (and part of what I counted as living space), although poorly insulated, and it has ductwork going to it.

The current setup is a 97k BTU "Patriot 80" brand lowboy oil furnace, which is about 7 years old. During the coldest nights of this past winter, it ran almost continuously to keep the house warm.

I was looking at the DS Machine Kozy-King series stoves for this installation. The house only has 1 flue, which goes up through the center of the house, and is nearly 40 ft tall. I would like to install the coal furnace on this flue, and set the oil furnace up to a power-vent, since it will only be used if we go away.

I would like to get feedback from anyone else that has one of these furnaces, or to hear opinions on one of these vs a coal stoker furnace.

Thanks!


 
cmk9180
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Post by cmk9180 » Thu. May. 01, 2014 11:46 pm

My furnace is a woodchuck, which is similar to the DS Kozy King. It is only one year old, and I have to sell it. Wife said no more coal!! :-/ PM me if you're interested.

 
KingCoal
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Post by KingCoal » Sun. May. 04, 2014 8:42 pm

cmk9180 wrote:My furnace is a woodchuck, which is similar to the DS Kozy King. It is only one year old, and I have to sell it. Wife said no more coal!! :-/ PM me if you're interested.
well that's a shame.

my wife was Soooooooooooo happy when I gave up on the last round of wood and went back to coal that yrs. and yrs. of other dumb moves were simply wiped out !!

 
sharkman8810
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Post by sharkman8810 » Sat. May. 10, 2014 10:37 pm

Nothing wrong with d.s. machines that I have heard. The model you are talking about is large for your house it seems and way overkill. Hitzer makes a good 82 FA and they also make a stoker stove. I use a 82 UL and built a heat collector and fan and they are good stove's. Cost wise the 82's are pretty inexpensive compared to what you will pay for a stoker.

Basically the difference between stokers and the hand fired is that the stokers require power for all the automated features and that you add coal to a hopper and it feeds through, and you remove ash. You do have to know what you are doing to set these up to a degree, but the great folks in the stoker section can help you a lot more than me.

 
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Coalfire
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Post by Coalfire » Sun. May. 11, 2014 8:15 am

Not sure on the cozy king, However If you have to have electricity to run the fan, and it sounds like you wont get radiant heat off the furnace since your basement is separate, I would vote for a stoker furnace. Keystoker, leisure line, ect. would probably be the most efficient in the way of coal consumption and heat produced going to the appropriate area

Eric

 
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LsFarm
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Post by LsFarm » Mon. May. 12, 2014 7:58 am

I'd vote for a stoker or even hand fed small coal boiler, install a water-to-air heat exchanger in the existing furnace plenum.
The stored heat in a boiler's water will help even out the temp swings in a hot air system, and you will have the advantage of unlimited hot water for Domestic use as well.

I just think that a hand fed furnace will have many times when it's heat is wasted because the house is not calling for heat, and since it's not a stoker, there is no automatic way to turn down the fire, so the furnace gets HOT and the heat just goes up the chimney..

Greg L

 
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Post by ddahlgren » Sun. May. 18, 2014 11:06 am

When I got the house I going to sell soon it had a gravity warm air oil fired converted from coal Holland furnace and it was a beast as far as size goes. It had a half a dozen 12X12 heat registers and 2 large cold air returns. I have to admit I am the moron that threw away the grates and converted the coal bin into a finished storage area. It was my grand parents estate and bought it from the estate to pay their bills. I remember it as always being warm in the house but never over heated in any way.


 
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LDPosse
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Post by LDPosse » Mon. Jun. 09, 2014 9:47 pm

LsFarm wrote:I'd vote for a stoker or even hand fed small coal boiler, install a water-to-air heat exchanger in the existing furnace plenum.
The stored heat in a boiler's water will help even out the temp swings in a hot air system, and you will have the advantage of unlimited hot water for Domestic use as well.

I just think that a hand fed furnace will have many times when it's heat is wasted because the house is not calling for heat, and since it's not a stoker, there is no automatic way to turn down the fire, so the furnace gets HOT and the heat just goes up the chimney..

Greg L
I have been wondering if maybe this would be a better option... I've been trying to figure out how on earth to plumb a coal hot air furnace in along with the existing oil burner. My basement has very limited space available, and I'm thinking that using a heat exchanger might be the best bet. Can I just plumb one of these into the plenum above the oil furnace? I'm assuming there must be controls available that allow the oil furnace's blower fan to run, but not activate the oil burner unless the coal appliance's water temp drops below a certain temp....

We are also planning an addition on the house. Is there anything wrong with using a boiler and baseboard hot water in the addition, but retaining the forced hot air in the existing part of the house? Maybe the furnace heat exchanger, then the addition would be separate zones...

Sorry for the rambling!
Thanks!

 
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windyhill4.2
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Post by windyhill4.2 » Mon. Jun. 09, 2014 10:18 pm

That's the beauty of a boiler, use baseboard or radiators in part of the house & hot air via water exchanger in the duct work in another part .No problem with that idea at all.

 
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Sunny Boy
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Post by Sunny Boy » Tue. Jun. 10, 2014 7:01 am

" ................. Can I just plumb one of these into the plenum above the oil furnace? I'm assuming there must be controls available that allow the oil furnace's blower fan to run, but not activate the oil burner unless the coal appliance's water temp drops below a certain temp.... "

I did basically the same thing, but with an electric plenum heater added to the duct work of my oil furnace. The company that makes the electric plenum also provides all the controls to make the electric heat the primary heat source and turn the oil burner into the standby heat sources.

The electric plenum control box uses the oil furnace blower fan, but it keeps the oil burner motor off unless the demand for heat is greater than the electric plenum can provide (below zero temps outdoors). Then the control box automatically turnsswitches over to the oil burner motor until heat demand is met. Once demand is met, the control box automatically switches back to the electric plenum being primary. The same controls, or similar, may be made to work for your boiler heat exchanger?

Plus, they provide the seperate temp sensors to control over fire temps, etc..

Their tech people were very helpful when I had some questions about how to wire up the controls. Since what your doing is basically the same - a heat plenum in an oil furnace - they may have the add-on controls that will work for your situation, plus be able to guide you in mating up the two systems.

http://www.thermolec.com/en/productView.aspx?type ... duct&id=71

Paul

 
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Sunny Boy
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Post by Sunny Boy » Tue. Jun. 10, 2014 7:21 am

A simpler method to check out.

All hot air furnaces use an air temp control probe in the plenum, just above the fire box to turn the blower fan on/off and control the burner motor. All it does is sense the air temp in the plenum and then turn on/off the blower fan and the motor as needed to keep the air in the plenum within a certain (somewhat adjustable) heat range.

Moving that sensor to right above a hot water plenum should work to keep the burner off as long as the hot water plenum keeps the probe within the proper heat range. When the plenum temp drops too much (coal fire too low), the probe turns on the burner motor. When it gets too hot, it shuts off the burner motor, but keeps the blower going until the plenum air temp drops below a certain point.

The sensor doesn't care where the heat is coming from- oil or hot water- it will still control the blower and burner motor based only on the air temp it senses inside the plenum.

Paul

 
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DePippo79
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Post by DePippo79 » Tue. Jun. 10, 2014 11:17 am

Wouldn't waste my time with baseboard in the addition. Seeing how it's new construction I would go with radiant floor heat. If you go the boiler route. Matt

 
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Sunny Boy
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Post by Sunny Boy » Tue. Jun. 10, 2014 1:37 pm

It's been awhile since I worked on my furnace. The more I thought about adding a hot water coil to the furnace plenum , the simpler this may be. Here's some additional thoughts.

As I mentioned in a reply above, the fan limit switch controls the blower and the burner motor by sensing hot air temperature inside the plenum.

When the wall thermostat calls for heat, the burner kicks on and starts heating the plenum. When the air inside the plenum reaches the temp that the fan limit switch is adjusted to, it kicks on the blower.

As long as the air in the plenum remains above the limit switch low temp set point it will make blower continue to run.

When the wall thermostat reaches the set point, it shuts off the burner, but the blower keeps going until the fan limit switch senses the air in the plenum has dropped below it's lower limit set point.

If you add a hot water coil in the plenum before (below) the limit switch, that coil will keep heating the air thus making the limit switch keep the blower running.

If the wall thermostat is set just below actual room temperature with the boiler and blower fan taking care of the heat load, the burner won't come on unless the coal boiler output drops, thus dropping the room temp near the wall thermostat, which will turn on the oil burner.

If the hot water coil can add enough heat, without restricting the air flow too much (squirrel cage blowers don't like air flow restriction), it should be able to keep the blower fan on, and the burner off, while supplying heat.

The will run none stop as long as the boiler hot water coil is hot enough, but the electric draw is not as costly as the stop/start plus the cost of fuel oil.

Here's more reading on the fan limit switch.
http://inspectapedia.com/heat/Fan_Limit_Switch.htm

Paul

 
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LDPosse
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Post by LDPosse » Tue. Jun. 10, 2014 5:38 pm

DePippo79 wrote:Wouldn't waste my time with baseboard in the addition. Seeing how it's new construction I would go with radiant floor heat. If you go the boiler route. Matt
I'm assuming with radiant floor heat, you mean installing these under the subfloor?

http://www.pexuniverse.com/store/category/stamped ... fer-plates

We are planning to put a laminate floor in the addition. Will that work OK with the radiant floor heating? I wondered if the expansion/contraction of the laminate could cause it to buckle.
Thanks!

 
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windyhill4.2
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Post by windyhill4.2 » Tue. Jun. 10, 2014 5:55 pm

There are good things to be said about in-floor heat, I've also heard quite a few negatives on it. The only heat that can beat a cast iron radiator's heat is the radiant heat from a stove in the room with you. I would question the total effectiveness of in-floor heat on the brutal cold days/nights,will it be able to deliver enough heat ?


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