1 Thermostat running a Pellet stove and Furnace... Is this possible?

[David0979]

Love the Forum, and this has kind of I been asked before, but I don't know for sure if what i am looking for will work. I have a Pellet stove i use as my main heat source, with a Natural Gas furnace as backup. I am using 2 separate thermostats currently, both Battery operated, and wires from both the furnace and pellet stove are wired to the W/RH connections on their respective thermostats.

I would like to run both units off of one thermostat if possible, so if the pellet stove runs out of pellets, the furnace would then kick on. Does anyone know if this is doable? Or is it easier to just stay with 2 thermostats?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Bad LP]

Sounds easier and cheaper to run the t'stats a few degrees apart. I'm a member of the KISS club.

 

[velvetfoot]

If you already have the two thermostats set up, I think I would keep them that way. I'd been fooling around with my thermostat lately, having oil be second stage heat and the pellet boiler first stage. Thing is you have to set a delta T before the second stage is activated, but that gets a little sticky with a setback recovery. You'd still have that problem with two thermostats as well, w.r.t. the setback recovery. You'd probably need a thermostat that uses C wire for power.

 

[Buzz Saw]

Not sure if it applies, but there are thermostats for LP and heat pumps on one unit. Not sure how it works though.

 

[David0979]

Thanks, I'm probably going to stick with the two. My only reason for getting them to 1 is, i have one i can control remotely Thru my security system. I thought it would be nice to control them both remotely, however, i think i'm just going to keep it as is, I mirror the furnace about 15 degrees lower than the stove, so if the stove runs out, and the house drops 15 degrees, then the furnace will kick in to keep things from getting too cold, until i can get the pellet stove filled. I was also considering getting Nest thermostat, but would only want to do that if I could put them both on the 1 unit.

I have seen threads as well saying something about using different zone settings, or the heat pump settings, but i don't know enough about the units to really set it up that way.

KISS Method is probably the best.

Thanks!

 

[Highbeam]

15 degrees is huge! I would go for a 5 degree drop before stage 2.