Looking to maybe buy a Englander add on furnace to my existing electric heat set up. Does anyone know if it is possible?
Adding a wood add-on furnace to a heat pump furnace
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Eric Johnson
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Anything is possible, but unless you have some ductwork to move the heat into your house, there's not much point in getting a furnace. When you say "electric heat" are you talking about electric baseboards, or an electric forced-air furnace?
My apologies. I have a Carrier electric heat pump forced air unit. All the duct work is in place.
My worries center on pumping hot air into the plenum. Not sure if I could damage the fan coils with the heat. Should I be concerned? I downloaded the owner's manual and it says to be sure that the add on furnace BTU rating does not exceed the BTU rating of the central air unit. Why is that? My house is very small, but is very old with a lot of air leaks. Trying to seal those leaks would be a daunting task. Everything that I found so far about the heat pump (model numbers refernced to size) says that it is only an 18,000 BTU unit. For some reason it does not sound right. The house is about 1300 square feet including the basement. I figure theat the wood furnace would be ideal to offset the house flaws.
laynes69
Minister of Fire
The wood furnace add-ons are some heat producing machines. With only 1300 square feet, I would consider a good wood stove. And yes you can add a add-on to a air handler, but I would do it down the line a little with a damper to keep the heat moving in one direction. As far as the heat on the coil, shouldn't be a problem, but if the power goes out it could get too hot too fast. Also what type of ducts do you have, and what are the clearances from the floor joist, wall studs, etc. Its very important to keep these things in mind when looking. You would probably find that something of that size would overheat the house quickly, and you would end up burning it too slow, causing creasote. There is a add-on furnace thats new from psg. Its called the mini-caddy. Maybe check into something like that.
It looks as if I have 6 or 7" duct piping throughout the house. Most of it runs right under the floor next to the joists. BTW, my house is a single story with a subgrade basement, so all of the duct work is exposed and in plain view. How do you know what grade of pipe it is? Is there an easy way to tell?
Right now, I have a Century 1000 heating the basement. It does a pretty good job of heating the upstairs as the heat rises, but obviously has trouble heating any rooms adjacent to the kitchen directly above. On very cold days, I have to keep the woodstove fully loaded to produce enough heat just to take off the chill. There is no room to spare with that size woodstove, but I got it from Lowes for $235, so nothing lost, really.
Now, I do have an old Johnson Energy Systems wood furnace. It was my Dad's from back in the 80's. No door gaskets, no ash pan gaskets, limited damper control (although automatic), etc. It is pretty primitive, but have welder, can modify. I am just not sure how much I want to put into fabricating gasket channels, locking door handles, modified grates (similar to the Englander wood furnace). It is, by far, much smaller than the Englander, has the larger squirrel cage blower and the furnace connections to do the same job. But like I said, it would take some ingenuity to get that thing air tight enough to control the draft and make it "more" efficient than I remember.
Right now, I have a Century 1000 heating the basement. It does a pretty good job of heating the upstairs as the heat rises, but obviously has trouble heating any rooms adjacent to the kitchen directly above. On very cold days, I have to keep the woodstove fully loaded to produce enough heat just to take off the chill. There is no room to spare with that size woodstove, but I got it from Lowes for $235, so nothing lost, really.
Now, I do have an old Johnson Energy Systems wood furnace. It was my Dad's from back in the 80's. No door gaskets, no ash pan gaskets, limited damper control (although automatic), etc. It is pretty primitive, but have welder, can modify. I am just not sure how much I want to put into fabricating gasket channels, locking door handles, modified grates (similar to the Englander wood furnace). It is, by far, much smaller than the Englander, has the larger squirrel cage blower and the furnace connections to do the same job. But like I said, it would take some ingenuity to get that thing air tight enough to control the draft and make it "more" efficient than I remember.
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