HELP WITH CONNECTING ENGLANDER FURNACE ELECTRIC TO EXISTING FURNACE

[jpecobird]

I have a Englander 28-3500 and need help. I currently have a heat/air pump with a propane furnace backup. I want this wood furnace to heat my house but if the temperature of the house drops below a certain temperature (if we are away for a day etc.) I would like my heat/air pump to kick in. How do I hook the englander's thermostat to the my existing furnace fan so that my heat/air pump will not turn on (until needed) and I do not have to manually turn my furnace's fan on via the house thermostat and have it run constantly. Any help appreciated. Thank you. The furnaces existing blower will not blow it sufficiently to heat my house so I really need the furnace fan to help.

 

[brenndatomu]

Hi J. Just an FYI, you are not being ignored as so far you've had 46 looky-looz, but I think it is more so that nobody (hey, maybe it's just me) is sure what you are trying to do exactly? Please explain your setup a lil more and what you are trying to accomplish so we can take a stab at it.

I'll start with this, the Englander should have it's own 'stat.

 

[jpecobird]

[quote="brenndatomu, post: 1881142, member: 28195" Thanks. Okay we will start from beginning. Bought house - installed new heat/air pump with a propane furnace backup. Went to Lowe's looking for outside wood furnace - per their recommendation bought in June of 2014. Put up outside shed for furnace and installed furnace in it in September - then found out this furnace was made for inside next to existing furnace. Cannot return furnace or piping used to pipe into house. So, we installed a secondary blower in the piping that goes to the existing furnace. What we need now is to find out how to go about making sure that the furnace fan goes on to help distribute heat thruout the house without having the heat/air pump or propane kick in. We want the heat/air pump to kick in once the wood furnace temp drops below 65.

Called Englander - could not help. Told me we would have to turn on the furnace fan manually and just have it run constantly. We really really don't want to have to do that. We need some help in figuring out: 1) how to get furnace fan to kick in automatically when wood furnace is blowing hot air; 2) how to get the heat/air pump to kick in when temp drops below 65; and 3) to make sure that heat/air or propane back does not kick on when the wood furnace is blowing hot enuf r. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[laynes69]

The Englander is a manual furnace not meant for a thermostat. Unfortunately when you assist the woodfurnace with the blower of the central furnace, you temper the air. You cannot tie the fan/limit control into both the central furnace and the wood furnace. It sounds like the wrong tool for the job. For what your describing, a larger woodfurnace with a plenum opening that can be installed in series is what you need. There's only so much that can be done with a single 8" opening from the englander. Could you describe your home's square footage, age, insulation, etc? As far as having the heat pump kick in below 65, that will happen when the woodfurnace's fire gets low and can't keep up. If you don't want the central furace kicking on while burning wood, turn down the thermostat. Like I say, it just sounds like your asking for too much from the Englander.

 

[brenndatomu]

The Englander is a manual furnace not meant for a thermostat.

Yeah, this is where I smack myself in the forehead! Don't know what I was thinkin?! Anyways, yeah, I hafta agree with Laynes, I'm not sayin that you won't get this too work for you, but I would say it is likely gonna be problematic getting there.
OK, first things first, to get the furnace blower to run when the Englander blower is running I would install a relay on the furnace blower that is triggered by the temp switch that controls the Englander blower. But like Laynes said, the air may be too cool by the time it hits the registers to do any good.
Any chance of moving it next to the gas furnace? From what I have read, people are often disappointed with outdoor forced air wood furnaces. Wood heaters are popular right now, you could probably recoup a lot of your money selling on CL.

 

[jpecobird]

Thanks for the info and help. Unfortunately cannot move next to furnace and cannot afford to replace at this point. We do have an inline fan installed in the piping in the house - so we are going to try it. If not - if we can pump the air into the basement with enough force to heat the basement - we will put registers in the floor to have the heat rise to the upper floor to help offset the heat/air pump.

Really appreciate your help.

 

[brenndatomu]

so we are going to try it. If not - if we can pump the air into the basement with enough force to heat the basement - we will put registers in the floor to have the heat rise to the upper floor to help offset the heat/air pump.

Unless the basement is finished and well insulated this more often than not does not work. The basement floor and walls just absorb all that heat and almost none makes it upstairs

 

[jpecobird]

Unless the basement is finished and well insulated this more often than not does not work. The basement floor and walls just absorb all that heat and almost none makes it upstairs

We have insulation up along with drywall on the walls, the joists for the first floor are insulated between and drywall has been put on the ceiling; and the floor is covered with a floating floor with tile. So hopefully this will help.