What to do for main heat source

[riedeselchar]

Hi everyone....new to this site and i need advice. I live in a 4000sq foot home that acutally use to be a store. My husband and i bought it almost 6 years ago. We had two furnaces installed 5 years ago, and one runs each side of the house. (It's also a 2 story) We've been remodeling it since we bought it, and even with 2 furnaces it stays pretty cold. Mostly due to me turning the heat down to try and save on our bill. They are gas furnaces, and our biggest bills are in Jan, Feb and March, and run around $450 per month. From October to april i'd say we pay roughly $1700 for heat. Maybe more. Anyway, i would like to have i'm thinking a pellet stove installed with our existing furnaces and that be our main source of heat. Is that possible? Our furnaces are on our main floor in a furnace closet. On the back side of them, is a wall that on the other side is my husbands work shop. I thought the work shop would be an ideal place to put the burner and connect it to the furnaces. (We only have a crawl space so really can't put it anywhere else other than the shop) I've heard where you put it gets so hot you normally can't stand it. This would be a way to heat his shop, but not be so hot in the house we can't stand it. (He has doors in the shop that lead to outside he could open if he were in there and it got too hot) You could look at it like an attached garage, with a door leading to the house and a larger double door that leads to outside. If there were any mess it would be contained to his shop. Anyway, does this sound doable? and What size furnace would i need? Any input would be great. Also would pellet be best? Or would we be better off with a wood burner, corn burer or what? Thanks again!

 

[sdrobertson]

With 2 furnaces to heat the house I would think you could run a wood boiler which would heat water, and then run water lines to both furnaces and install heat exchangers in the duct work. You would use your furnace fans to blow the warm air into the house. If you used as pellet stove or a wood furnace, then you would have to move the warm air over the house with one set of duct work.

What is the set up for your house? Why are you using 2 furnaces? Do you have experience with burning wood prior?

 

[riedeselchar]

We have no prior experience and are trying to figure what our best option would be. They installed 2 furnaces due to the size of the home, and partly because of the construction. It was built in 1864 and is made of limestone rock, on the west side. In 1913 they added on the other side and it is wood frame. We thought the guy who did our HVAC knew what he was doing but we later found out he didn't know squat. We wanted one upstairs and one down, but he said it couldn't be done that way. Later found out he just didn't want to go through the side of the stone house to run duct work and so on. He also put all our supplies in the ceiling which we found out is ok, but he also put the returns in the ceilings. So our main floor was freezing and never reached the desired temp. He also put all the registers upstairs on the floor, and also put the returns on the floor as well. My husband has since fixed all these problems. So again, one side of house is stone, other is wood frame. It's one house but kinda is divided, only by doorways, but we refer to it as the "otherside" of the house. And also remember this house use to be a store. Was never a home until we got it. It use to be apartments upstairs. Downstairs consists of a mudroom, kitchen/dining/staircase area which is 30x30. Bathroom, and living room which is 25x23. Also have a storage/utility room where hot water heater/electrical is. Upstairs is 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths and laundry. Master is 16x30, master bath is 13x15. As you can see all very large rooms. We have a gas fireplace in the living room which is on a thermostat but when we run it, it just seems to run and run. We have new insulation in the whole house, and are replacing windows although some are old, and we have those covered with plastic until we can get them replaced. I keep our heat on about 62 and downstairs feels like it, but upstairs is rather warm. If i turn it over 65 i can't stand it in my bedroom. So that is a whole other problem as well and we can't figure that one out either.

 

[laynes69]

Pellets would be easy to use, but not always a cheaper option. Then having 2 wood or pellet furnaces ties into each furnace would also do the job, but twice the work. I would look into a boiler and have zones setup, or like said heat exchangers in each of the plenums of the gas furnaces. That way you would feed one unit instead of two. Theres alot of people here in the boiler room that run gasification boilers with storage. If I was considering an option to heat a home that size and I had the money I would choose that route. A forced air or two forced air wood furnaces would work also, but you may have a hard time keeping a set or comfortable temperature.