Can I run wood furnace direct to my own floor vents?

[fscotte]

Home is about 1900 sq/feet total.

I have a large main room living area (about 1400 square feet, includes great room with vaulted ceilings, kitchen, dining area, breakfast room, foyer.)

About 9 floor vents in all for the above listed living area of 1400 sq/ft.


I only need to heat or supplement heat the 1400 sq/ft living area with a simple operated wood furnace (such as the Summers Heat sold at Lowes. I do not want an expensive complicated unit.

I would like to make my own separate floor vents for the wood furnace. Plan would be to cut out 2 vents in the floor which would be close to where the wood furnace would be. I do not want to use the existing vents because it would require extra ductwork cutting, plus adding in backflow dampers, and basically just interfering with the operation and flow of the propane furnace whenever it kicked on.



I have a couple worries:

1) If the duct work comes out of the furnace and directly into 2 floor vents approximately 10 feet away, would the temperature be dangerous or excessively hot coming out of the vents?

2) Would 2 vents be adequate venting to heat 1400 square feet?




I cannot put the wood furnace next to my propane furnace because the only exit for the flue would be about 40 feet away then...

 

[STIHLY DAN]

Should work as long as the vents are big enough. I would also suggest a 90 deg tack off on each one, for heat disapation.

 

[laynes69]

If anything, I would contact the manufacturer of the furnace and ask them. Usually the ducting calls for so many feet, before coming in contact with combustibles. If the ducts are ran too close to the furnace, then temperatures could be high.

There's no listed clearances in the manual for ducting, except the 2" clearances in the plenum air ducts to ceiling listed on the furnace tag. I don't see anything about distance from the furnace. If you can do what your wanting, then maybe they could give you an idea on the size of the two ducts coming from the furnace.

 

[M1sterM]

I ran the Englander (same furnace, different name) that way. Only had two vents. The air would definitely be hot, but not dangerously so (at least to humans). There are clearances to combustibles to follow though, if that's what you're asking about.

I was heating about 2400 sq feet, but also had a 30-NC stove, and we could easily get the house to 75 degrees at 10 degrees outside.

 

[fscotte]

Wow, thanks guys. Seems encouraging. There's also the option of tying directly into the end run of the heating part of the duct. Not sure how many have success with that...

 

[brenndatomu]

I installed the wood furnace at my sisters house this way, with it having it's own duct work/vents. The 2 vents to the upstairs are at one end of the house near the furnace, the basement stairwell at the other end of the house is acting as a cold air return to the basement, so that pulls heat to the other end of a very long ranch house. Doing it this way solved a lot of clearance issues and really works pretty well.