johnha
ArboristSite Guru
My 11th season heating with wood. Love the heat, HATE the dust, BUT, I think I may finally have found something about forced air HVAC that makes me hate it less and love my wood heat more.
We had our 44 YO HVAC system replaced last spring. This modern unit has a 'Circ' setting for the blower motor that basically runs the blower at a low speed approximately 30% of the time. The purpose is to prevent warm and cold spots when you're running the AC or Heater, but you can run the fan that way without the heat or ac being on.
I started using that 'circ' setting along with the wood heat this year and the reduction in dust has been nothing short of amazing. Prior to this year, the winter necessitated weekly dusting of the house, no exceptions, my wife being particular to all-glass coffee and end tables.
Its been 3.5 weeks since we dusted and its now just starting to look like it might need it again, and y'all know how much wood we've been using in this exceptionally cold winter. So if you have a relatively modern blower system you might want to check it out.
Tradeoff is keeping the HVAC filter clean. I would also say electricity but I'm no longer running the two rather large room filters that I've used the past few years, which in retrospect were pretty useless.
We had our 44 YO HVAC system replaced last spring. This modern unit has a 'Circ' setting for the blower motor that basically runs the blower at a low speed approximately 30% of the time. The purpose is to prevent warm and cold spots when you're running the AC or Heater, but you can run the fan that way without the heat or ac being on.
I started using that 'circ' setting along with the wood heat this year and the reduction in dust has been nothing short of amazing. Prior to this year, the winter necessitated weekly dusting of the house, no exceptions, my wife being particular to all-glass coffee and end tables.
Its been 3.5 weeks since we dusted and its now just starting to look like it might need it again, and y'all know how much wood we've been using in this exceptionally cold winter. So if you have a relatively modern blower system you might want to check it out.
Tradeoff is keeping the HVAC filter clean. I would also say electricity but I'm no longer running the two rather large room filters that I've used the past few years, which in retrospect were pretty useless.