Thermostat to regulate furnace blower fan

[joed2323]

Looking for a way to automatically turn on and off my propane furnace fan so it moves the the air through the floor vents in my house.

Pellet stove is in middle of house and does a good job keeping the house warm, but I manually turn on and off my furnace fan for about 10-15mins or so to move the heat to the back rooms. Only problem with doing this manually is I dont like getting up in the middle of the night to turn on furnace fan...

Looking for any ideas on if their is something they sell that does this automatically...

 

[Lake Girl]

The only thing I can think of is to change out the furnace thermostat for one that is programmable. Not sure what is on the market and how complicated that may be...

PS Furnace must have a seperate fan wire.
This just came up on a search ... https://nest.com/support/article/How-do-I-use-Nest-to-turn-on-my-fan-without-heating-or-cooling

 

[corkman]

I believe some of the guys use a product called hydrotherm. You can wire it in sequence with you tstat and programm it to turn on your furnace fan. Do a search in here and it should come up

 

[corkman]

J just did a search but nothing coming up. Hopefully this jogs someone's memory and they'll chime in.

 

[Wilbur Feral]

J just did a search but nothing coming up. Hopefully this jogs someone's memory and they'll chime in.

The Nest thermostat can turn on a furnace fan for a variable amount of time (you select) during whatever hours you tell it to do so. But not cheap, at around $250.

 

[joed2323]

The Nest thermostat can turn on a furnace fan for a variable amount of time (you select) during whatever hours you tell it to do so. But not cheap, at around $250.

Ouch @250 just to be able to turn furnace fan on for a set amount of time..

I better keep looking before I dish out $250

 

[brenndatomu]

If you are handy you could do it by mounting an inexpensive tstat in the "cool" part of the house, and then you just need an inexpensive relay that operates on 24V AC. The contact side (120v) of the relay gets wired to your furnace blower, then the 24V side is wired to the furnaces 24 power supply with the new tstat wired in series to turn the relay on/off...should be able to put this all together under $40...

 

[railfanron]

Here's my thoughts on this. If your existing furnace stat has a fan on switch, what I would do is get a cheap manual thermostat like a round Honeywell stat and the I would trace the wires out of the existing stat and find the one that turns on the blower. Then I would wire the cheap stat in series on the wire that controls the fan. By "in series" I mean cut the wire that controls the fan and wire each of the two ends to each terminal on the cheap stat. That should get you what you want.
Ron

 

[shtrdave]

I have a heat pump and have tried the fan to distribute the warm air through out my small place. About 1000 sq ft. the air handler is in an attic type room, and by the time the warm air get pulled up and moved it is cooled down. So for me it really didn't do anything. My electronic tstat has a fan setting on it. maybe check out the big bx stores for a new tstat with something similar.

 

[jp99]

If you're handy with basic electronics, you can install a timer on your fan circuit. I have one on my furnace, and when my thermostat is set for Fan as "On" rather than auto the timer is in the fan's circuit.

I have a fancy digital timer / relay with some switches for certain functions, but any basic timer should work. In the picture below, I'm running the fan with a 55% on cycle over a 30 minute period.

 

[Watcher1]

Looking for a way to automatically turn on and off my propane furnace fan so it moves the the air through the floor vents in my house.

Pellet stove is in middle of house and does a good job keeping the house warm, but I manually turn on and off my furnace fan for about 10-15mins or so to move the heat to the back rooms. Only problem with doing this manually is I dont like getting up in the middle of the night to turn on furnace fan...

Looking for any ideas on if their is something they sell that does this automatically...

You just need this LUX CAG 1500A. This is a programmable at most BBS' It has a clean air switch on for a bit then off. And if you house calls for more heat it will override it self and go back.
http://www.supplyhouse.com/Lux-CAG1...ammable-Smart-Temp-Heating-Cooling-Thermostat

 

[Watcher1]

OK did not see that is discontinued but you can find something like it.

 

[corkman]

This is what I was referring to

 

[ohbix]

Doesn't the thermguard (bearmountaindesign) do this for both forced air and boiler systems?

 

[Metal]

You need the ThermGuard. John (Hearth.com username bridgerman) I believe is the person that sells/invented them so he could answer any questions, although he hasn't been around here in a while. I saw this at the HPBA show a few years back and it is perfect for your situation. You can set the on/off intervals for your furnace fan and it works in conjunction with your current thermostat. Simple two wire install to boot. The cheapest price I have found is on his website (see ohbix's post above). And no, I do not work for them or have any financial reason to hock the product (unlike many reviewers on Amazon), I just like simple products that solve simple problems. By the way, if you type "101657512" into the voucher area you get 10% off for being a Hearth.com member.

 

[pageyjim]

Looking for a way to automatically turn on and off my propane furnace fan so it moves the the air through the floor vents in my house.

Pellet stove is in middle of house and does a good job keeping the house warm, but I manually turn on and off my furnace fan for about 10-15mins or so to move the heat to the back rooms. Only problem with doing this manually is I dont like getting up in the middle of the night to turn on furnace fan...

Looking for any ideas on if their is something they sell that does this automatically...

Many digital programmable thermostats could do this for you. You would probably be limited to being able to do this four times/day. I do not suggest the "Nest" thermostat.

 

[bridgerman]

You need the ThermGuard. John (Hearth.com username bridgerman) I believe is the person that sells/invented them so he could answer any questions, although he hasn't been around here in a while. I saw this at the HPBA show a few years back and it is perfect for your situation. You can set the on/off intervals for your furnace fan and it works in conjunction with your current thermostat. Simple two wire install to boot. The cheapest price I have found is on his website (see ohbix's post above). And no, I do not work for them or have any financial reason to hock the product (unlike many reviewers on Amazon), I just like simple products that solve simple problems. By the way, if you type "101657512" into the voucher area you get 10% off for being a Hearth.com member.

Thanks for the suggestion to Joed2323 and yes, the ThermGuard is what will solve the problem.

ThermGuard does work on both boilers and forced air furnaces. I live in Montana and I have a boiler and a wood stove in my house. My pipes froze and burst twice when I was burning my stove to keep the house warm. There was nothing commercially available to periodically circulate the water through the pipes to keep them from freezing while I was burning my wood stove so I invented the ThermGuard. I have mine set up to circulate water for 3 minutes every 3 hours and my pipes have never experienced another problem, no matter how cold, or how much the wind blows,

The ThermGuard also works with furnaces that have whole house blower fans. The ThermGuard can be set up to periodically turn on just the fan to draw warm air into the duct system and distribute it throughout the house. No more cold back bedrooms when the room with the stove is warm.

The connection is very simple, just two wires that can be connected at the thermostat, or in the furnace/boiler room. Programming is very simple as well. Press the one button until the red light comes on, then tap the button for the number of 15 minute periods you want to wait before turning on the boiler or fan. Then when the red light comes on, tap the button for the number of minutes you want the fan/boiler to come on. That is it.

The microprocessor has storage for your settings even if the power goes off. Turn off the ThermGuard when the weather warrants, and then turn it back on when the weather is cold. ThermGuard remembers your settings.

ThermGuard doesn't interfere with the operation of your thermostat. If your thermostat calls for heat, the ThermGuard will go to sleep and start the timing after the thermostat is satisfied. It won't start a cycle 5 minutes after the the thermostat called for heat since the pipes or ducts are already warm.

Please feel free to ask any questions in this forum, or PM me if you prefer.

Stay warm!
John/Bridgerman

 

[bridgerman]

Doesn't the thermguard (bearmountaindesign) do this for both forced air and boiler systems?

Yes!