Coordinating oil and pellet heat

[latichever]

I have a three story house. Pellet stove in first floor living room. I have a wireless thermostat for the pellet stove. Furnace thermostat is on the wall just outside the living room.

The oil furnace will never go on and provide heat to the second and third floor unless we set its thermostat above the temperature in the living room. (The pellet stove does provide some heating for the second floor, but sometimes we want more.) It occurred to me that if the pellet thermostat and the oil thermostat were set at the same temperature they would go on and off together. So I'll experiment with that.

The ideal solution would be to have the thermostat for the oil on the second floor, but it's a very old house with thick plaster walls, so I'm wondering if there is a wireless thermostat that can be retrofitted to an old (but in good shape) furnace.

 

[peirhead]

Does the furnace heat with forced air or radiators. Perhaps you can adjust dampers (forced air) or valves for hot water to allow more heat flow upstairs and less to the family room......I mean are they zoned separately...it sounds like you really want to be able to control the heat upstairs independantly from downstairs....then you could turn up thhe furnace thermostat without overheating the living room.

 

[SteveT]

You might also consider a Thermguard -- search this site for discussions and a link to the site. Basically this will turn your furnace on/off in accordance with TIME instead of TEMPERATURE. So, for example you may find it provides adequate heat turning the furnace on for 5 minutes every hour. If it got really cold you could reprogram it for a longer duration or shorter interval. Not a perfect solution (because you'd probably have to re-program fairly often) but better than you have now. And if you have a hydronic system, having the furnace stay off introduces a freeze-up risk.