Down draft furnace

[AIM]

Does anyone make an indoor wood furnace that is a downdraft?
My brother in law has a mobile home that he wants to add a large closed in front porch to. The porch will be built on a cement slab at ground level and he wants to put a wood furnace out there. All the furnaces I see blow out the top so he would have to go out the top and elbow back down and then elbow in through the skirting. One that exited low in the back would be perfect.

 

[CrappieKeith]

I've been in the business for 13 years and I've never seen a down draft wood furnace.
That is an animal not made due to saftey and basic pricinpals of gravity operation.
You'll have to make the ducting to bring the heats back down.
I'd advise that a heat dump is installed in it's hot air plenum and maybe even a generator for back up power.

 

[AIM]

I certainly can see the difficulties in making a down draft wood furnace but I'm suprised nobody has. We can put a man on the moon and have computer chips the size of a pea and yet no one has figured this out...

 

[ericjeeper]

I certainly can see the difficulties in making a down draft wood furnace but I'm suprised nobody has. We can put a man on the moon and have computer chips the size of a pea and yet no one has figured this out...

Yeah but none of those defy physics..

 

[CrappieKeith]

I certainly can see the difficulties in making a down draft wood furnace but I'm suprised nobody has. We can put a man on the moon and have computer chips the size of a pea and yet no one has figured this out...

You can't change the physics of heat rising.Trapping heat can and will cause metal fatigue.
It's not that big of a deal.Turn your ducting down from the top of the furnace and make sure you have a strong blower.

 

[ray benson]

Might consider a woodstove, some models have blowers.

 

[Haywire Haywood]

He wants to put it on his front porch and pipe it in, a regular wood stove wouldn't work.

Ian

 

[ericjeeper]

Rural King has a owf

On sale now for 2995. Not a bad looking unit from the outside..Looks a whole lot better than that brand someone was pushing on here last year.,.

 

[jedgar949]

i disagree

I've been in the business for 13 years and I've never seen a down draft wood furnace.
That is an animal not made due to saftey and basic pricinpals of gravity operation.
You'll have to make the ducting to bring the heats back down.
I'd advise that a heat dump is installed in it's hot air plenum and maybe even a generator for back up power.[/QUOT

Just because the stove was made to output the heat from the top does not mean it has to go through those holes. I have created the first downdraft add on wood furnace and yes u can force hot air downwards. I talked with many stove company's and they all told me the same thing. It won't work work with a downdraft system. Well I proved them wrong. With a lot of research and some trial and error I did do it. I don't really want to share how I did it because I think there is a market for it. Maybe I might start producing them I don't know. Call me a liar I don't you just have to think outside the box

 

[chucker]

daka wood furnaces are capable of doing this for a mobile home. theres a port for top venting as well as directing from the back of the unit for your application at floor level! cost is around 1050.00 for a starting price model 521fb.

 

[jedgar949]

downdraft add on wood furnace

Does anyone make an indoor wood furnace that is a downdraft?
My brother in law has a mobile home that he wants to add a large closed in front porch to. The porch will be built on a cement slab at ground level and he wants to put a wood furnace out there. All the furnaces I see blow out the top so he would have to go out the top and elbow back down and then elbow in through the skirting. One that exited low in the back would be perfect.

nobody makes one. looked into it for two years talked to alit of stove manufacturers and they all said the same thing. downdraft systems wont work with our add on furnace. so i did my research and created my own by reversing how the add on should work. mine works flawlessly. people say you cant force hot air downwards but obviously they dont know how a downdraft central furnace works

 

[jedgar949]

daka wood furnaces are capable of doing this for a mobile home. theres a port for top venting as well as directing from the back of the unit for your application at floor level! cost is around 1050.00 for a starting price model 521fb.

You would still have to modify the air outlets in the back to even try to make it work. That's only half the battle. Trust me I know. Plus almost all add on furnaces have the same setup as of heat outlets and blower mounts as is what u are referring to

 

[jedgar949]

All add on wood furnaces have heat outlets at top and mounting holes in the back for the blowers. So why would the daka be the best?????

 

[chucker]

All add on wood furnaces have heat outlets at top and mounting holes in the back for the blowers. So why would the daka be the best?????

never stated that daka was the best! just know from personal experience that its doable !! us stove company,s hot blast is another usable unit coupled with a blower unit to move air from the side of the furnace...

 

[wrightk20]

What about a wood boiler? You would only have to run lines into the house instead of duct work and then just install an water to air heat exchanger. They make some pretty nice down draft gasifier boilers now a days. Might be a little more spendy than what you are looking for though. Kevin

 

[Encore]

Wood boiler would be much easier to set up than some down draft variation.

I'm sure there is a way to make it work but you just have to decide how much time and effort you want to put into it. To me, making something like that work seems like a big pain in the neck. If it were me I'd do either an OWB or just plan on adding a new trunk line into the home. Although most mobile homes seem to do just fine with an indoor free standing stove.

 

[blades]

Question is he renting the lot or on his own or some type of association as there ok is needed. Then he needs to check codes if he is within a municipality. and last but not least is his insurance company. Clear the first three then start worrying about the furnace
To the daka and Hotblast guys side hole are blower mounts, not to be reversed, Why? because heat rises and with a wood furnace if you lose power to those blowers it will overheat, hence the need for a heat dump, which is a safety precaution. Choose to ignore that is up to you, But once one of those mobile homes catches fire they are almost always a total loss. I watched the place kitty corner to me ( only about 40 yards away) melt down about 4 years ago ( no one hurt) and That was with the local FD pouring water on it ( more to protect the rest of us than anything else) Fire traveled through walls when it hit the composition roof it was game over ( less than 3 hours from FD arrival) Not an old relic either late 90's ( fire caused by shorted electrical appliance from what I heard, I know there was no wood burning appliance in that unit)

 

[cheeves]

I certainly can see the difficulties in making a down draft wood furnace but I'm suprised nobody has. We can put a man on the moon and have computer chips the size of a pea and yet no one has figured this out...

I've got a Tempwood wood stove. But no furnace. You know I remember seeing a picture of a huge 4 tube stove that Tempwood made that would take a 4ft log. It was so big it had a lever on the side to open the "door" on top ( a big steel plate). I remember hearing of one heating an indoor tennis facility!

 

[prakashkamath]

rocket mass

look into something called a rocket mass stove/furnace. i've only heard of them, not built one. you can see some on youtube as well. most of the youtube videos seem to have pretty shoddy craftsmanship.

here's an nice website about it.

http://www.richsoil.com/rocket-stove-mass-heater.jsp

 

[jedgar949]

I do agree with the heat dump idea for reversing the system. It makes sense but have not done that yet. It really wasn't that big of a pain to reverse how the furnace works. Took me a weekend to get it all put together but now I'm fabricating it even more to make it more efficient. So far works great if anybody has any questions on how I did it let me know