Hi guys long time lurker first time poster. Anyways my fiancé and I purchased our first home together this summer and in the basement it has an old decommissioned oil furnace and a pre epa wood stove. So when we purchased the house the realtor said you can have one or the other, so being that hardwood is pletiful around these parts we said we would prefer the wood heat. So they took the electronics out of the oil furnace and left it. So we had our first fire the other day and we found that our down stairs gets very warm (half finished basement) but the up stairs wasn’t so warm. I know it’s hard to help when don’t know the setup and I’ll try to get some pictures when I’m home, but what I was wondering could we remove the old oil furnace and install something like the drolet heatmax 2 as that is on sale at our local Kent department store for a decent price? As our whole house has the duct work running through it already with cold air intake and return ducting in place. Sorry for the long post but I’m just at a cross roads as it is our first year hear so I know wood heat has a learning curve to it and if it gets to cold the wife cranks the baseboard to the max..
New wood burner in a newer home.
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3fordasho
Minister of Fire
The heatmax 2 is a good choice but what do you have for a chimney? Modern wood furnaces/stoves require good draft, usually provided by either 6" liner in an existing brick/clay tile chimney or 6" Class A stainless steel double wall piping. Not that brick/clay can't be made to work, just more difficult if oversized or on a cold outside wall and if it doesn't work then you need a liner.
Also do you have fully automatic back up heat? like LP, Natural gas, or electric? Homeowners insurance usually requires this as wood heat can not be your only heat source. If not I am surprised they would decommission the oil furnace.
Also do you have fully automatic back up heat? like LP, Natural gas, or electric? Homeowners insurance usually requires this as wood heat can not be your only heat source. If not I am surprised they would decommission the oil furnace.
When we bought the house our realtor had it in the clause that when the oil furnace was removed that the existing chimney be brought up to current specifications so it comes off my existing wood stove up maybe a foot has a 45 goes for another 2 feet then straight up through to the rough all double walled pipe. Which was installed during the wett certification. As for the existing stove I’m not to sure what it is but it does not have secondary burn tubes and I can’t seem to find a stamp on it anywhere. As for back up we do have electric baseboard heating throughout the house.
You sound like a good candidate for a wood furnace. Lots of information here about the Drolets. Excellent value!
maple1
Minister of Fire
I have electric baseboard throughout the upstairs down stairs has one baseboard in a bedroom/office I’ll say office because windows are not egress. Other than that down stairs is all the wood stoves job to heat.
Nothing is ever that simple! 
from the looks of it you will need to set the wood furnace a couple feet farther from the back wall. The cold air return is in about the right place for a drolet tho. What size are the supply and return ducts?
from the looks of it you will need to set the wood furnace a couple feet farther from the back wall. The cold air return is in about the right place for a drolet tho. What size are the supply and return ducts?Is that flex duct I see in the second photo? That could cause a problem if the duct temps get too high.
Haha that is very true.. so the return is 15” square and I believe the cold air is 12? You are correct it is a flex pipe but it is for my air exchanger not coming off the main vent of the furnace. All the piping coming off the main line is hard piping.Nothing is ever that simple!
maple1
Minister of Fire
Might be some mix up here. Cold air, and return, usually mean the same thing.
Oh okay sorry I just look at the vent that connects to my outside wall it looked smaller then looked at the size of the filter that connects to the existing furnace, my mistake.
You can download an owners manual for the drolet at mfp.com. there is a section in there with all the installation requirements such as minimum sizes for the ductwork.
Off the wall - could you just keep what you have, using the blower from the furnace to circulate the wood stove heat? I wonder if I had installed a regular stove in my rather smallish furnace room, and circulated the warm air with my existing furnace blower, if I wouldn't see the same results as a wood furnace. With the cooler output air of the newer furnaces, it's more about a lot of circulation, than blasting a little really hot air.
Not that I don't appreciate my Kuuma, but -
Knowing what I know now, if I had all your parts already installed, If I thought there was any chance, I would try it and see what happens. Only you would know how close you are to that working in your house. I think it comes down to how many btus you can add inside your house envelope with your particular stove, and can you partition the area around the stove and the air intake, so that you could get enough of those btus to the area of the house where you want them, when it gets cold.
If the existing woodstove is capable of heating the house this way, then you could look at replacing it with a more efficient stove, and/or a larger one if it looks apt to fall short of BTUs. From what I've read, (haven't owned one - yet), a BK King would give a lot of turn down ability for the shoulder seasons, which is something that the existing furnaces lack (yep, currently lighting more fires than I would prefer to in the Kuuma due to the up and down weather).
I'd note that installing a furnace in place of the woodstove doesn't automatically eliminate the issue of distributing the btus to where you want them, as wood furnace blowers are typically much lower CFM than a conventional furnace.
Not that I don't appreciate my Kuuma, but -
Knowing what I know now, if I had all your parts already installed, If I thought there was any chance, I would try it and see what happens. Only you would know how close you are to that working in your house. I think it comes down to how many btus you can add inside your house envelope with your particular stove, and can you partition the area around the stove and the air intake, so that you could get enough of those btus to the area of the house where you want them, when it gets cold.
If the existing woodstove is capable of heating the house this way, then you could look at replacing it with a more efficient stove, and/or a larger one if it looks apt to fall short of BTUs. From what I've read, (haven't owned one - yet), a BK King would give a lot of turn down ability for the shoulder seasons, which is something that the existing furnaces lack (yep, currently lighting more fires than I would prefer to in the Kuuma due to the up and down weather).
I'd note that installing a furnace in place of the woodstove doesn't automatically eliminate the issue of distributing the btus to where you want them, as wood furnace blowers are typically much lower CFM than a conventional furnace.
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Exactly what I was thinking be cheaper to try that instead of spending 3000$ on a furnace that I may not need. It’s not that my current wood stove doesn’t heat it heats actually very well just the warm air seems to stay down in the basement. So really I just have a problem moving the air not heating it essentially. An upgrade will be coming eventually whether it be a furnace or woodstove I’m not sure but I will look into your idea before I drop that kind of money on a new unit. Thank you!
SpaceBus
Minister of Fire
Many have tried, most do not succeed in distributing the heat generated by a freestanding wood stove.
brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
I believe it, the blower is very low cfm even on max speed and it looks like the previous owner tried tying it in to existing duct work at one time then went back and disconnected and blocked it back off.
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