Newbie... Need Install Advice For Farenheit Endurance

So I decided to go with a biomass furnace, and came across the endurance 50F. I haven't been able to find a used one so I'll have to go with a new one. I would like to use it as a standalone BUT, not sure if it will put out the heat I am hoping for. So using it as an add-on may be the way to go. The plan is to hook up to supply and return as per the install instructions of my existing forced air system. I would like some advice as I am trying to learn how and the best way to execute this install. The living space is on one level with the basement being downstairs which is where the furnace is going.

 

Send 343amc a PM. He has the 50F and should be able to help you out.

 

Also @DexterDay has a Fahrenheit.

Piggybacking is typically the best bet.

 

Rule of thumb, shortest venting placement and then plumbing into ductwork. Welcome aboard.

 

Welcome to the friendliest wood/pellet heating site on the Internet. There are a few of us Fahrenheit owners here, as well as a group of very knowledgeable pellet burners.

I hooked mine up as an add on to my oil furnace. I don't have my manual handy, but I believe there are illustrations that show where the backdraft dampers would go. Those will keep the heat from 'looping' through the hot supply and cold return ducts. I have one damper in the oil furnace above my AC a-coil and a butterfly damper in the outlet of the Fahrenheit. The damper in my oil furnace is a home brew unit, but it does the trick. I set the thermostat on the oil furnace to 52 degrees, so if the furnace goes out or something else goes awry, then the oil furnace will kick on. Lucky for me, that hasn't happened yet.

If you could hook it up standalone as Dexter mentioned, that would make the most out of what the convection blower has to offer. For me, that would have been a huge pain in the rear. If you do use the existing ductwork, the best I can offer is to seal the ducts as best as possible. I also insulated my supply ducts, which wasn't very expensive, but just time consuming.

My unit is an older first generation unit (manual ignition, LED control board). The units that Dexter and Ivanhoe have are newer automatic ignition units. I have a bunch of pictures I took from a cleaning and replacement of one of my burn pot components, but I haven't made a thread on it yet. One of these days I'll do that.

Feel free to ask questions. We're here to help.

Edit - I'm heating just under 1700 square feet on the main floor, and half that in the basement. The other half of the basement is the utility room and doesn't have any registers, but stays pretty warm from the furnace being over there. I'll post some pics of my install in the morning when I'm back at my computer.

 

Wow, thanks for the warm welcome! Still working on posting pics.....
When you guys say standalone, are you referring to actually running new supply vents to each room in the house?

 

Yes.

Here I thought add on was best because the ducting is already there. I guess I may be mistaken.

 

I know , that seems crazy to run new ductwork along the existing ones. Probably lots of money and work, also I have 2 rooms over a garage which means the new ductwork would be outside the garage sheetrock insulated ceiling. I don't think it would pay off because that may lose heat.

 

I suppose that standalone could also mean disconnecting your existing furnace from the ductwork and connecting only the Fahrenheit. From what I've heard, some insurance companies don't like having 'non conventional' heat as the primary heat source. I like to know that if I have an issue with the pellet furnace that my oil furnace will pick up the slack. Or if I go away for a weekend in the winter, I can let the oil furnace chug along. I have the extended hopper on mine, and I went away for a weekend last winter, set the Fahrenheit on level 2 and came home 2.5 days later and it was still going with 80 pounds of pellets in the hopper.

 

This makes a lot of sense, I would love to see pics of your pipe work.

 

I only have 7 total registers myself including the bathrooms. I only have two bedrooms that are over the garage that are the farthest. Maybe 15-20ft away from the furnace.

 

Here are a few pics of my install. I had to extend the cold air return a few feet, but outside of that it was just a matter of finding the 10" round duct and start collars, then the time to get it all hooked up. These were taken right after the install and before I insulated the ductwork.

One thing that isn't optimal with mine is the location. It is at the far end of my basement right underneath the master bedroom. My oil furnace sits right in the middle of the basement. I didn't have any way to properly vent it from that area (would have been a heck of a long horizontal run, which isn't a good thing), and the pellet furnace would have been too close to the oil tank. Most of the take offs to the room registers had dampers in them, so I close down the ones closest to the furnace and open up the ones farthest away. Not the greatest, but it works.

My 'backdraft damper' is manual as well. Well, sort of manual. It slides into the plenum on the oil furnace and rests on three L shaped "shelves" that I attached to the plenum. At the start of the season, I slide it into the plenum. If the blower on the oil furnace ever turns on, that damper (which is just a piece of sheet metal) will rise up and let the air flow through the plenum. When the oil furnace blower shuts off, it drops back down into place. Its a bit of redneck engineering, but I couldn't find any way to put a "real" backdraft damper in the plenum without redoing the entire plenum. If I need to run the oil furnace exclusively, I can slide that damper out and its back to normal.

 

Mine is also a manual unit. Not installed yet but slowllllyy working on it. I've aluminum taped all joints and removed 2 unnecessary registers for a total of 16. I will close some as I will be testing out the system as winter progresses. If you can have it running on it's own ductwork, the better results you'll achieve if done correctly.

 

Your install looks good. I was trying to avoid drilling through concrete in the basement to get outside by using the existing flue since I don't plan on running the oil furnace. But I see now it's a BIG no no. So I will reconsider the endurance placement again and start from scratch. How did you drill through what looks like block?