Norseman Furnace 2500 issues in garage

[resourcefulr]

Hello!
My name is Wes. New to the forums here. I recently purchased a 1900sf house in Mi and have been attempting to heat it with a Norseman 2500. The burning is located in the garage and has 2 8in ducts that run into the basement and connects into the ducts down there. The chimny is the double wall insulated running strait out the roof. I have having issues with getting my house over 60deg. I have a great fire going in the wood stove, with beautiful seasoned ash.
My main question is, does the cold air return coming out of the back of the wood burner have to be duct into the cold air ducts of my house? I had a buddy that told me as long as I leave the door open between the garage and house I would be fine. Is there any other issues I should look for? Thanks!

 

[webbie]

Well, I hardly know where to start....but will give you some stuff to work with.....

Firstly, wood burning in an attached residential garage is against national fire codes (NFPA). There are many reason for this.....

Secondly, a BTU is a BTU. If you are trying to heat up 40 degree garage air to room temperature, that's a lot harder than heating house air from 60 back to 70.

As far as air flow and heating ability, the movement of large amounts of air is a fairly complicated subject. Chances are that your furnace fan is a good big larger than the fans on the add-on AND it is located in a perfect place with large ducts to push the heat around. Your furnace is another story - you may be pushing air through long runs of 8" duct and maybe even down and then into a large existing ductwork setup.

So, yeah, there are lots of issue. Problem is, it's probably too many to help you with except to point out some of the problems as above.

 

[laynes69]

More than likely, your garage isn't tight. You will lose heat there thru air leakage. Like Craig said, it's easier to heat room temp air than cold air in a garage.

Why don't you have the furnace in the basement by the central furnace? That furnace is an add-on, not so much a stand alone furnace. Also the air jacket isn't insulated, and there's a bit of heatloss thru the jacket. In the garage, it probably won't make it into the house. If your ductwork that comes off the furnace goes down, that's also a no no. If you lose power, the furnace will over heat quickly. Basically it's a heat trap.

It sounds like there's quite a few issues that need addressed.

 

[brenndatomu]

Hi Wes, Welcome to hearth! Good points ^^^
If you just bought the house...surprised you passed various inspections, got HO insurance, etc.

 

[KindredSpiritzz]

thats a long way to be pushing warm air just to get it into the house duct, much less spread thru to the rest of the house after that. I never liked the dual fans on my norseman, they just don't seem very powerful. Sounds like your set up is far from ideal. My unit is not connected to the cold air return on my gas furnace, i just use the filter box drawing air in the basement but i cut out some vents to the 1st floor so i get air circulation from the house back into the basement which helps circulate air.. Two things i would suggest to help as your set up now. Run your gas furnace fan along with the norseman fans as that should help push air thru the system, just make sure you have the back draft dampers in place so it isnt blown back into the norseman.I run my furnace fan just long enough to get the house up to temps then i shut it down and rely on the wood fans. Seems to work great for my set up. And maybe you could wrap insulation around the ducting from the norseman to the basement to help with heat loss.
But as others stated, you'd be better off getting that thing into the basement rather than your garage. If you want a heated garage run a vent out to it.
Also im doubting there was any type inspection done cause i doubt it'd of passed