OWB plenum in forced air duct

[zsteinmetz]

Hi. I just purchased a Wood Doctor OWB 8000sq ft model and have one problem. When going to mount my plenum in my forced air furnace i dont have enough room below or above my a coil to put my OWB plenum in. I have talked to some people and they said put it in your return air duct. Has anyone ever done this? How did it work? I hear its hard on furnace fans due to it having to pull 180 degree air through it instead of 70. Any help greatly appreciated.Zach

 

[bassman]

I assume you mean air conditioning coil??
you only need about 4 inches .
what shape and kind is your furnace ??
do you plan to use your furnace as back up??


how about a pic ??

shayne

 

[tditodd]

I would think you could put it in return ,not the best. Hot air is thinner then cold air,cold is heavy. The thing I would worry about is the hot air you will be pulling over the fan motor and hurting interal parts. You don't need but enough room just to get it in. You can always but in another plenum & blower just for your heat. good luck.

 

[ericjeeper]

Avoid the return air.

Not a good scenario. Surely you have six inches somewhere that you can slice into.All you need is to get the HX into the airstream.

 

[wdchuck]

Not a good scenario. Surely you have six inches somewhere that you can slice into.All you need is to get the HX into the airstream.

Agree, the only setup on a F/A furnace that can handle the heat is a model with stainless steel secondary, typically found on high end units, expensive, not common at all in most homes.

The other thing, put it after(downstream) from the A-coil, may have to get creative, or have an HVAC guy come and look at and give you some feedback, professional advice is often worth the one-hour charge.

 

[zsteinmetz]

Thanks for the info. Looking at it today again i have about an inch to play with. The air conditioning coil takes about all the room I have. I have a low ceiling in my basement which makes for not much room between the furnace and where all the chutes intersect and go throughout the house. Only about 18 inches. What do I do? I almost have to put it in the return air. I could put a coil in every main chute but i have 4 of them which would get costly. Does anyone know how thick these plenums are?

 

[zsteinmetz]

My furnace is a heil 80000btu. It is five foot high by 18 inches wide. Yes i wanna use my gas as a backup.

 

[tditodd]

My coil is about 4" thick and lays flat above the A coil. You will have to get a look inside your duct above A coil to see if you have enough room. (bet you will have enough ). Stay away from the return line, just not good deal. Good luck.

 

[ericjeeper]

Get us some photos

And let us see if there are any locations suitable.. Thanks
You really only need six inches of space.

 

[ghitch75]

My coil is about 4" thick and lays flat above the A coil. You will have to get a look inside your duct above A coil to see if you have enough room. (bet you will have enough ). Stay away from the return line, just not good deal. Good luck.

i'v put 100's of them in the return side of the system....suck or blow as long as it's movin' air across the coil it will be fine...

btw.. make sure it's down stream of your air filter

 

[MS-310]

Im not an fan of the coil being on the return side....it doesnt work as well, done alot of test with it at my house. Yes I have done it, you have to do what you have to do to make it work. With all of us here that have maybe put one in or like me and ghitch75 that have put a tons of them in we will find an way.

Jack

 

[zsteinmetz]

So your saying you have put lots of these in ghitch 75. They have to be installed after the filter?Another thought guys looking at my furnace above the burners there is an access panel then another access panel into the furnace itself. dead space but gets really warm on side of cover when furnace is running. With my boiler backup should never have to kick in but if it doeswill the burneres melt the coil? i'll get some pics up soon.

 

[zsteinmetz]

Here are some pics...


Thanks,
Zach

 

[ghitch75]

So your saying you have put lots of these in ghitch 75. They have to be installed after the filter?Another thought guys looking at my furnace above the burners there is an access panel then another access panel into the furnace itself. dead space but gets really warm on side of cover when furnace is running. With my boiler backup should never have to kick in but if it doeswill the burneres melt the coil? i'll get some pics up soon.

after the filter if it's put in the return air side of your system...and as far as your gas furnace melting the coil it would have to get to 800 degress or high to do that and if it has gotten that high your A/C coil would have melted down by now....and as far as your pic's there to big for me to look at them would take close to an hour for me to download them i'm in the sticks and in dialup hell!!!!!!

google XP picture resize or use paint to make your pic's smaller