Any HVAC guys here?

Justsomedude

I've been kicking some ideas around lately that I have to better heat our house. We have no gas, just electrical hookup for everything, including our heating and air which took a dump (heat pump). I know that many will say to just get a new unit, but let's pretend that's not an option, mostly because im a tight ass. We've dealt with the summer time by having 2 portable AC units that work surprisingly well in our ranch house with full basement. We've been making do in winter with our wood pellet stove that's in the basement, more specifically in mine and the wife's room in the basement which also shares the same space as the air handler that's in a louvered closet. I can just fire up the stove and let it heat up the whole room which gets drawn into the air handler and pushed throughout the house via the duct work and vents. The problem is that our room gets much hotter than I prefer to sleep in so I'm wondering if I can somehow tie the stove into the ducts? I understand that it's a stove and not a furnace but it puts out substantial heat and it's not just radiant heat, it has a blower motor and vents that it directs the hot air out of. I've considered trying to make ducting from the stoves vent holes and pipe it to the existing house ducting but don't know if the heat will dissipate while traversing from A to B (about 10'). I also don't know if the stoves blower will be overcome by the HVAC blower. Any ideas or anybody done something alike?

Jermanator

I guess if you could get the pellet stove heat attached to the air handler plenum and then set the air handler to fan mode, it would do what you have in mind.

gunner81

does your pellet have a hookup to tie into duct or a blower to circulate the air if it does it can be done but if it was me I would invest in a 90=
+ furnace converted to propane and use that for your heat and when you buy a new heat pump tie it in with a tempature cutout for the HP to heat to 35 then below that the furnace takes over

Elk creek

It’s been touched on but does you fan still work in your heat pump system? if so just use the pellet stove leave the furnace fan on it will equalize the temp in the house. 

Justsomedude

gunner81 said:

does your pellet have a hookup to tie into duct or a blower to circulate the air if it does it can be done but if it was me I would invest in a 90=
+ furnace converted to propane and use that for your heat and when you buy a new heat pump tie it in with a tempature cutout for the HP to heat to 35 then below that the furnace takes over

There's no hookup but it would be pretty simple to fit a duct to the blower ports of the pellet stove.

Justsomedude

Elk creek said:

It’s been touched on but does you fan still work in your heat pump system? if so just use the pellet stove leave the furnace fan on it will equalize the temp in the house. 

Yes. That's the way that I've been using it to heat the whole house but in doing so it has our bedroom too hot. I'd like it to evenly heat the house

Justsomedude

Jermanator said:

I guess if you could get the pellet stove heat attached to the air handler plenum and then set the air handler to fan mode, it would do what you have in mind.

I know nothing about air handlers. Would the plenum pull the heat into it before reaching the blower (if I asked that correctly?)

Varmintmist

You would have to duct it into the cold air return to put it in front of the blower. Is there a cold air return in your bedroom? There has to be a path for flow to help balance the temp. Hopefully, you have bent aluminum and not flex for ducts.

Jermanator

An air handler is basically a furnace without the burners. Anyway, its job is to suck and blow. It sucks in the cold air/return air through one set of ducts (that lead to the plenum-- which is the big line attached to it) then blows it out through the supply plenum then supply ducts.) Like Varmintmist was saying, if you can feed that warm air into the return air-- preferably as close as possible to the air handler since typical return air ducts aren't designed to deal with heated air-- it will probably work. If you have flex ducts, don't use those unless you know for sure that they can handle the air temp coming off the pellet stove. I would try to make that pathway 100% sheet metal duct and as close as possible to the blower (ideally attached directly to the plenum).

gunner81

I would tie the pellet into the supply of the air handler and run the fan on the on positition of the thermostat

Justsomedude

I'm not sure if there's a return air vent in our room or not but the whole hvac unit is only about 10 foot from the pellet stove. We also dont have any of that flex ducting. It's all sheet metal.

gunner81

You want to tie it into your supply air not return air it is after the blower but the return is not the way to do it in my opinion 

gunner81

I think I should tell you I own an HVAC business for 30 years and install wood stoves and pellet stoves

gunner81

Tied into the reeturn you wont get any     air return from your return the way its supposed to circulate the air in the house

Justsomedude

Where on the unit would I find the supply portion? I hate to sound like I have no idea what I'm talking about, but i have no idea what I'm talking about lol.

gunner81

The supply should be on the top if the unit is upright the filter should be on the return on the side of the unit   or possibly the bottom if it is set on a box