On first fire of the furnace found the heat exchanger was cracked. Now I have a furnace to cannabilize for parts. On to my project... I plan to remove the blower, relay and transformer, build a new case for the squirl cage and mount it above the stove. With a few sheets of steel welded to the sides of the stove and ducts tied in I expect to be able to convert my freestanding stove into a forced air furnace and tie into the existing ductwork. I am no stranger to fabrication welding or any of the electrical work required to construct this Frankenstien, the issues I have are HVAC related. I have a few intenional "leaks" in the basement already plus the house is 100+ years old so I have no air intake issues to the basement. Would a system like this work or would I need to figure in a way to run a cold a return from the upper floors to avoid negative pressure? I could always just cut holes in the walls between warm rooms and cold rooms and install power fans, but my motto is if it is woth doing it is worth over doing. I'm open for suggestions and if this works I will post pictures throughout the process so someone else can have fun hacking up a furnace and a stove.
) Is your home a single story cape or 2, is it an open floor plan? The reason I ask is because I once owned an antique cape in Northern Ma. and the warm air furnace was an obvious retrofit when the center fireplace was removed 60-70 yrs ago and one large cold air return was placed as close to center of the house as possible. This of course was not very efficient and I couldn't understand why my 2nd floor was so cold. I doubt all the testingt that a current HVAC pro does was done then. That was why all the interior doors had a 2 inch gap at the bottom to try to get cold air to the center of the house and down the return. Your local county, or power company (you might have to tell them you're considering going with their fuel or product 
) might provide a free air quality test, and various efficiency tests and this may help you decide if you need specific return paths for the air in the home. good luck friend, my coal stove is blowing me out of an 1100 sq. ft. ranch so it also will be going to my basement etc.
. I am going to disconnect and push my oil burner out of the way, and put my MkII in its place in the basement under the duct work. I was going to box the stove's blower into the cold air return to pull the cold air down into the basement. I was trying to decide if I should then let gravity work at putting the heat up thru the plenum. After thinking about that for a while, I decided it would probably work better by installing a fan and filters into the plenum in order assist gravity with heating the whole house. My goal is to make the MkII the primary source of heat for the whole house, and kiss the fuel oil companies good bye!
