Connected my Englander 25-EP to a Wi-Fi thermostat this weekend

[Chris from Maine]

So the issue for me to accomplish this has always been that I wanted to use the same Wi-Fi thermostat (same model, not actually the same physical unit) as what runs the propane forced hot air at my second home.
Mainly for the simplicity of running both thermostats from the same app.

So the first problem was that the thermostat hookup on those stoves is just removing a jumper and replacing it with leads from a thermostat. The thermostat doesn’t need to send power to the stove board, it just needs to act as a closed switch.

The other issue is that the Wi-Fi thermostat I use requires the “c-wire” from the furnace to supply the power to the thermostat in order for it to function. Since the Englander stove isn’t set up for that, I needed to find a work around for that too

One option was to by a “c-wire” stand alone power unit to supply the 24v to the thermostat. The other option was to just run a wire to the board on my propane furnace and grab power from there, since the pellet stove is in the same room as my furnace is located.

Next I needed to take the signal wire from the thermostat and make it just be a closed switch without sending 24v to the board on the pellet stove. I really wasn’t sure if that would hurt the board, and given that it is just a jumper there for non thermostat operation, I didn’t think it was a good idea to “just try it”. Especially since a new control board was over $300 if I fried it somehow.

So what I bought instead was this simple relay switch that takes the 24v from the out signal of the thermostat, and converts it to a simple “normally open or normally closed” switch. I connected the wires from the normally open pair, to the jumper leads on the board, so when the thermostat calls for heat, it trips the relay switch with closes the circuit and allows the stove to run.

The purpose of this is so that I can begin to warm the house Friday late morning before I head up Friday night for weekends in the winter. I don’t like to use the propane unless I have to, but it takes a good while for the pellet stove to really warm the bones of the house when I leave the house at 55 degrees.

The old routine was, turn up the temp from 55 to 68 degrees on my forced hot air remotely as we leave for the 3 hr ride, and the house is warm when we get there- but it would just be the air that was warm, and it would take most of the night after we got there and lit the pellet stove for it to have warmed the basement enough, that the heat would actually warm the living area too. Takes a long time to really warm up the bones of the house up there. Once it’s warm though, it takes very little to maintain it.

Now the new routine will be, to just leave the pellet stove ready to go with a full hopper, and turn it on early in the day Friday, instead of the propane forced hot air furnace. Give it plenty of time to warm the house before we get there, and I can finally turn it on way ahead of time from my phone.

Really happy with the outcome. I realize it’s not the space shuttle and I didn’t cure world hunger this weekend, but it was a fun project for very little money. I had a spool of thermostat wire on hand already, and the thermostat I bought was half price refurbished for a little over $50, and the relay switch was around $15. I tested it last night before we left to come home. I can remotely start it, and remotely turn it off from anywhere with my iPhone. I did purchase an extra ring camera to so I can visually see that it’s running, and not doing anything crazy.