englander add on furnce
- Thread starter rich81
- Start date
-
Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.
We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.
We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
- Status
stoveguy2esw
Minister of Fire
rich,
i build them , please let me know if i can be of any service.
actually it is a furnace , designed to dump heat int your duct work which is the distributed by the existing whole house furnace fan. although i have seen this unit used as a "shop heater" as well , with the stove not connected to duct work and just an 8 inch elbow at the convection output that could be aimed wherever suits the user, or just allowing the blower to dump into the open space of the shop. the maintainence shop at our country club has one in it that heats the insulated metal shop ,about 1800 sq ft extremely well. i have also installed one in my dads house, which is 3600 sq ft counting the basement , and it heat the whole house with just an assist from the whole house furnace fan. its been a great unit for ESW since its start of production in 1991
i build them , please let me know if i can be of any service.
actually it is a furnace , designed to dump heat int your duct work which is the distributed by the existing whole house furnace fan. although i have seen this unit used as a "shop heater" as well , with the stove not connected to duct work and just an 8 inch elbow at the convection output that could be aimed wherever suits the user, or just allowing the blower to dump into the open space of the shop. the maintainence shop at our country club has one in it that heats the insulated metal shop ,about 1800 sq ft extremely well. i have also installed one in my dads house, which is 3600 sq ft counting the basement , and it heat the whole house with just an assist from the whole house furnace fan. its been a great unit for ESW since its start of production in 1991
Rich
I installed one 2 years ago. I works exactly as advertised. I have a 2 story home with about 2,600 sf of living space. Basement is probably another 1,200 sf. The first year I was obsessed with seeing how much I could reduce my gas bill from our gas-fired forced air furnace. I succeeded - our gas furnace only came on when we were away for the weekend. Second year I wasn't quite as obsessed. I only burned it when the temperature was below 45. Still saved a bunch on gas.
I have it set up just as the installation manual suggests. Hot air from the Englander furnace is pumped into my forced air systems ductwork. I do as Mike's dad does. My gas furnace has a fan setting where the fan blows at very low speed to circulate the air in the house. This is just enough to boost the wood furnace fan to get the job done. Also lets the humidifier and electronic air cleaner do their thing.
I can easily recommend this furnace.
One question for Mike. When I bought the 28-3500, and just recently when I saw it on display in a store, it is shown as a wood/coal add on furnace. The owners manual and Englander's web site refer only to wood. Can coal be burned in it?
Sean
I installed one 2 years ago. I works exactly as advertised. I have a 2 story home with about 2,600 sf of living space. Basement is probably another 1,200 sf. The first year I was obsessed with seeing how much I could reduce my gas bill from our gas-fired forced air furnace. I succeeded - our gas furnace only came on when we were away for the weekend. Second year I wasn't quite as obsessed. I only burned it when the temperature was below 45. Still saved a bunch on gas.
I have it set up just as the installation manual suggests. Hot air from the Englander furnace is pumped into my forced air systems ductwork. I do as Mike's dad does. My gas furnace has a fan setting where the fan blows at very low speed to circulate the air in the house. This is just enough to boost the wood furnace fan to get the job done. Also lets the humidifier and electronic air cleaner do their thing.
I can easily recommend this furnace.
One question for Mike. When I bought the 28-3500, and just recently when I saw it on display in a store, it is shown as a wood/coal add on furnace. The owners manual and Englander's web site refer only to wood. Can coal be burned in it?
Sean
stoveguy2esw
Minister of Fire
we used to list it as a wood/coal furnace , basically meaning that some coal could be added to an existing wood fir to extend the burn time. we ended up with a lot of misunderstanding that coal could be burned alone in the unit (thinking wood OR coal, not wood AND coal) which is not the case. the unit can accept a small addition of soft coal added to an existing fire , gives a couple hours to the end of the burn cycle. but you cannot burn just coal in this unit , it does not have a shaker and with that large a firebox, filled with coal would melt a hole in the basement floor. about 10 lbs is about all you would want to go. add it once wood is through the initial char stage. then before the next charge of wood is added rake down the coal bed , add the wood, char and add the coal again if desired.
wg_bent
Minister of Fire
Hey MIke, how much heat comes off the unit itself? Could it be plumbed into It's own dedicated set of duct work? I have a garage that is not used as a garage at all, and I've wondered if putting one of these units in the garage would keep the 20x24 garage reasonably warm (60) from the unit heat, and the heat out of the blower could be pumped directly in to the house.
Or, if an insignificant amount of heat comes off the unit, would it make sense for this unit to be installed outside? Perhaps in a dedicated outbuilding and run insulated ducts into the house?
Or, if an insignificant amount of heat comes off the unit, would it make sense for this unit to be installed outside? Perhaps in a dedicated outbuilding and run insulated ducts into the house?
stoveguy2esw
Minister of Fire
well , it could be plumbed in to a dedicated duct , but it would suffer from not having that whole house furnace blower to horse the air around. would probably do a smaller house , say maybe 1500 sq ft with a single trunk and a couple central dumps, but it really wasnt designed for stand alone use. it would also provide some heat to the garage but most of the firebox (all but the front face) is inclosed in the cabinet so radient heat isnt that extreme but ya get some, would depend on how well the garage held heat. dad's basement does warm up fairly well though , but it takes a while from a cold start and its probably as much from recirculation as it is radient heat.
as for plumbing from outside , no i wouldnt do that at all, the unit doesnt use a return so you would have to heat up the air from cold constantly instead of recieving prewarmed precirculated air from inside the house directly. i suppose a return box could be built around the blower but that would put a ton of static pressure on that blower and it would just bog down. naaah i'd advise against an outbuilding setup. would get too complicated trying to make it work due to the static pressure in the ducts, inline assist fans would have to be used and synchronized (tuned) to create a sustained flow of air in and out. not saying it cannot be done, but its way above my level of expertise.
as for plumbing from outside , no i wouldnt do that at all, the unit doesnt use a return so you would have to heat up the air from cold constantly instead of recieving prewarmed precirculated air from inside the house directly. i suppose a return box could be built around the blower but that would put a ton of static pressure on that blower and it would just bog down. naaah i'd advise against an outbuilding setup. would get too complicated trying to make it work due to the static pressure in the ducts, inline assist fans would have to be used and synchronized (tuned) to create a sustained flow of air in and out. not saying it cannot be done, but its way above my level of expertise.
Uhhhh. Probably not. It is an "Add-on furnace" meaning you connect it to existing ductwork. If you don't have ductwork you need to look at something else.
ifyou have hot water (radiator) heat i'd think you would need to look at a wood fired boiler, right?
probably what i'll go to eventually but not ready to make that leap yet.
probably what i'll go to eventually but not ready to make that leap yet.
stoveguy2esw
Minister of Fire
rich, im afraid i gotta agree with sean and KW on this one, about all you would be able to do is hook up on garage that is not used as such and plumb in through the adjoining wall , maybe drop a vent into the garage to heat it as well but you would not get even heat throughout the house, i think a boiler would be better if you have a water based system
laynes69
Minister of Fire
I have a hotblast wood/coal furnace. I tied mine in series so that I only use the furnace's blower to distribute my heat through the house. It works great. The one thing I noticed was the square footage rating for an englander. I can't see how it could heat that much with a single duct coming off the top. We have 10 foot ceilings here and our house is 2400 square feet, not including the basement. We have been successfull heating our house at 70 to 72 degrees when its -20 out. They look well built. I want to open the top of my furnace up an put in a 20x20 plenum on the top instead of the 3 8" runs, to improve the air flow. Does the englander have a decent burn time, and do they burn fairly clean? But like I said, I can't see them heating a 3000+ square foot home easily.
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
