longwood dual fuel

[David G]

The house we bought has a dual fuel Longwood furnace. It works fine for wood- go out back, cut down a tree or clean up all the dead ones, cut them up, drag em up, split em up, burn em up. The only fuel that heats you three times. Anyway, we build a fire and we're good to go. Except the gas side doesn't work. The fan doesn't run (and the thermocouple is out, which is an easy fix), but if you jump across the two thermostat terminals on the block, it does run, which is weird because the thermostat controls the automatic damper just fine.

I'd like to be able to fill it with wood and have the gas start the burning process, instead of having to build a fire.
We have another efficient gas furnace, so we don't NEED the gas side so much, but it would be nice.

Any brilliant ideas what's going on with this thing? I'm wondering... there's a "box" above the motor that has a thick red wire that comes from the damper control I think and one of the thermostat wires runs to it. Suppose that thing is the culprit? Suppose it's a relay? Haven't torn into it yet. Thought I make the heating guy do that work.

Any help appreciated.

David

 

[NateB]

(broken link removed to https://sites.google.com/site/longwoodfurnace/my-experiences-with-a-longwood)
Here is a site with some information about it. I would doubt that the gas fire burns in the same chamber as the wood does.

Burning unsplit 5 ft logs sounds like a really bad idea. Getting a log that size dry enough to burn would take a long (years) Long time.

My opinion from the little I read of the long wood furnace. I would scrap it and buy a nice wood stove to burn the free wood around the house.

Nate

 

[Marc D]

The house we bought has a dual fuel Longwood furnace. It works fine for wood- go out back, cut down a tree or clean up all the dead ones, cut them up, drag em up, split em up, burn em up. The only fuel that heats you three times. Anyway, we build a fire and we're good to go. Except the gas side doesn't work. The fan doesn't run (and the thermocouple is out, which is an easy fix), but if you jump across the two thermostat terminals on the block, it does run, which is weird because the thermostat controls the automatic damper just fine.

I'd like to be able to fill it with wood and have the gas start the burning process, instead of having to build a fire.
We have another efficient gas furnace, so we don't NEED the gas side so much, but it would be nice.

Any brilliant ideas what's going on with this thing? I'm wondering... there's a "box" above the motor that has a thick red wire that comes from the damper control I think and one of the thermostat wires runs to it. Suppose that thing is the culprit? Suppose it's a relay? Haven't torn into it yet. Thought I make the heating guy do that work.

Any help appreciated.

David

 

[Marc D]

I had a long wood furnace that I had installed in my first home in Wisconsin back in 1982. It was the best wood furnace I ever had. It had a heat exchanger on it that heated the basement area.

Two years after I bought it I had the same problem with the gas burner not firing. The local furnace repairman worked on it several times but could not figure it out. I had my electrician look and he replace a electrical part and it worked perfectly after that. Unfortunately I don’t remember what he replaced. I loved that furnace. It held wood up to 5 foot long and I would load it and when the temperature fell below the setting on the gas thermostat the gas burner would lite and ignite the wood. That’s was a great furnace especially during the 20 below plus Wisconsin winters.

The house was new and well insulated and the wood consumption was very low.