Thanks in advance for your insights. I’m a long time lurker first time poster. Our house has a fireplace on an exterior wall in the main living area; we call it the mediocre room. It has space for a living, kitchen, and dining areas and is about 24’ by 20’. The mechanical room, which contains a propane furnace, hot water heater and the fusebox is in the attic above the mediocre room . I’m currently remodeling this part of the house.
The medicor room had a Johnson Energy wood furnace circa 1960 in the middle of a wall that is adjacent to the fireplace. We used the Johnson furnace as the primary source to heat the house. I remove the Johnson because it took up too much space and restricted the placement of furniture. Cutting the living room area by half.
My thinking was that I would get a wood insert and use the ductwork from the Johnson furnace to draw ambient air from the mediocre room to the other rooms in the house. During the planning stage of this endeavor, I saw a dual fuel (that may not be the right term more later) insert that was advertised has a backup heat source meaning the natural or propane gas used to ignite the wood would fire up when the temperature went below a certain set point for example 50 degrees. It used a battery to create a spark to lite the burner so it work during a power outage. Even if we are not at home.
That feature has a lot of appeal to us because one time we were gone for about three weeks in February and our propane furnace stopped working. You can guess the mess we dealt with when we got home. The pipes burst and then thawed then re-froze again burst in different spots…..Fun Times!
Since the time I saw that dual fuel insert my computer crashed and I’ve lost my bookmarks and can’t seem to find this unicorn of a wood insert. I’ve tried various search terms such as dual fuel, hybyrd, backup, propane wood insert. Nothing after literally hours of looking around over the past few months.
Also my beautiful and delightful wife, seeing my frustration, asked why can’t we get a modern wood furnace and use the fireplace chimney. That way she says we can get most the space back and have the one focal point. I can rejigger the ductwork to make that idea work.
So my questions are 1) does anyone know about this mystical insert? 2) what search terms would you suggest to try to find that insert? 3) does my wife’s idea make any sense?
Thanks.
The medicor room had a Johnson Energy wood furnace circa 1960 in the middle of a wall that is adjacent to the fireplace. We used the Johnson furnace as the primary source to heat the house. I remove the Johnson because it took up too much space and restricted the placement of furniture. Cutting the living room area by half.
My thinking was that I would get a wood insert and use the ductwork from the Johnson furnace to draw ambient air from the mediocre room to the other rooms in the house. During the planning stage of this endeavor, I saw a dual fuel (that may not be the right term more later) insert that was advertised has a backup heat source meaning the natural or propane gas used to ignite the wood would fire up when the temperature went below a certain set point for example 50 degrees. It used a battery to create a spark to lite the burner so it work during a power outage. Even if we are not at home.
That feature has a lot of appeal to us because one time we were gone for about three weeks in February and our propane furnace stopped working. You can guess the mess we dealt with when we got home. The pipes burst and then thawed then re-froze again burst in different spots…..Fun Times!
Since the time I saw that dual fuel insert my computer crashed and I’ve lost my bookmarks and can’t seem to find this unicorn of a wood insert. I’ve tried various search terms such as dual fuel, hybyrd, backup, propane wood insert. Nothing after literally hours of looking around over the past few months.
Also my beautiful and delightful wife, seeing my frustration, asked why can’t we get a modern wood furnace and use the fireplace chimney. That way she says we can get most the space back and have the one focal point. I can rejigger the ductwork to make that idea work.
So my questions are 1) does anyone know about this mystical insert? 2) what search terms would you suggest to try to find that insert? 3) does my wife’s idea make any sense?
Thanks.
