Running your furnace fan

[ajr]

Up until this year I've never run my furnace fan just my small 550 cfm blower on my daka. Just wondering if anyone is using their furnace blower fan to circulate the air as well as the small fan on their wood furnace. Curious on the cost of constantly running both. It circulates the air a lot better in my 2 story 2500 sq ft farm house.

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[Mad Professor]

I heated with an upstairs woodstove. I would close all the upstairs outlets and open all the basement ones from the forced air oil backup furnace. The uptake for the cold air pickup was in the same room as the woodstove.

When it got really cold I would run the blower occasionally to heat the cellar and keep the pipes from freezing.

 

[ajr]

Did you notice a big increase in your power bill?

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[ole yukon]

I just have a wood stove in the living room, but I have a main air return in the hall way. I turn on the blower on my furnace and it will pull the hot air from the living room into the rest of the house. I usually just do this when I either get it too hot in the living room, or its really cold and I want to circulate the heat throughout the house. I havent noticed it adding much to my bill

 

[Mad Professor]

Did you notice a big increase in your power bill?

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No. Only ran it in really cold weather when the coldest part of the basement got below 35 oF.

I used part of the basement as a root cellar so that was fine, and the stove kept the rest of house toasty.

If you ran it it circulate the whole house that would certainly be more costly. You could check the wattage on the blower to get an estimate on power use.

 

[KindredSpiritzz]

sometimes when its real cold or i want to heat the house up faster i'll turn the furnace fan on to help the wood furnace push the warm air through the house. As long as you have back draft dampers in your system i don't think it hurts anything. I don't leave it on long, just enough to get it warm in the house. I figured it out last year, my 2 fans on my volzang cost me about $35.00 a month to run, never figured it out on the regular furnace fan tho.

 

[GrassGuerilla]

It's a whole lot cheaper to run the blower to move some wood heat around then it is to heat with lectric. I would estimate leaving our blower on to move the warmth around adds $15-20 monthly. Move the decimal over one for heating with electric.

If you check your service panel of the furnace, many have jumpers to affect the blower speed settings. I drop it down on its low speed in winter, then bump it back for summer time cooling. With the Trane system we have it has a multi speed blower. It starts blowing on low. If it "satisfies the thermostat" if shuts off normally. If its very cold, and it still hasn't met the demand, it kicks it up a notch. When our lectric furnace blower kicks up, it's dang cold out.

 

[Whitespider]

Electricity is still relatively cheap... even with the recent rate bumps.
Normally you're charged by the kilowatt hour (kwh)... so you have to think in terms of watts.
It's simple really, amps × volts = watts... if you use 1000 watts in one hour, you get charged for one kilowatt hour... if you use 2000 watts in one hour, you get charged for two kilowatt hours. If you know what voltage and amperage your furnace blower is rated at, and you know the rate you're charged for electricity, it ain't hard to figure.

But here's the rub... the amperage rating on your furnace blower ain't likely what it pulls once it's up to speed...
I'd be surprised if a typical 115v furnace blower, running 24/7 would cost more than a 50¢ a day... a 240v blower would surprise me if it cost more than 30¢ a day. But a blower that starts & stops several times a day could easily be twice that (maybe more).

 

[srb08]

I have two cold air returns close to my fireplace. I use the furnace to circulate warm air in the house when it's really cold out or we have overnight company. I've never really looked at the difference in the electric bill. With what I'm saving on propane, it's a non issue.

 

[ajr]

All good info its a newer 2 stage furnace hoping for the 50 cent a day deal. Spidey do you just use your blowers from the wood furnace.

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[Smulax]

My stove has a blower and is located near the furnace. I have a vent in the return duct which circulates the warm air from the basement. This allows the oil burner to stay off unless it's really cold

 

[aokpops]

Just bought a shelter .This beast almost never runs 15 f the last I look . Move the stat to 75 just to be sure the blower work an some needed chimney cleaning sitting here with pant shorts on no cover tonight

 

[Bushmans]

I have a wood stove in the lower level of my bi-level and of course it gets a lot hotter downstairs than up so I turn the furnace fan on occasionally to even out the house. I also installed an exhaust vent in the ceiling downstairs (almost directly above the stove) and ran a 4" duct up through the cold air return and into the upstairs living room. The 4" vent is right behind the face plate of the cold air return. You can't see it but you can feel the warm air blowing through it.
I also like to run the furnace fan because it helps clean the air in the house. We have 2 dogs, a cat and a bird that just love to clutter the house with dust and dander. Not to mention wood stoves can be a little dirty!

As long as there is no propane running thru the furnace I'm happy.
Electric bill? I don't run the furnace fan enough to even notice the difference. The blower for the wood stove is connected to a snap disc thermostat and comes on and off as stove temps dictate. The vent in the ceiling is on for 8 hours a day. The Christmas Lights are on all night, the chicken/duck coop custom water heater is on 24/7 and their light is on all day long. Momma and the kids usually leave at least half the lights on when they leave the house in the morning! LOL
Last year I was running a fireplace not a wood stove and had to use the furnace at least twice a day and it would kick on at night as well. We also supplemented with an electric radiator style heater.
November bill last year vs this year....$65 difference. Also the gas valve on the furnace is off!
I have 2 rooms in the house that are not used for anything but a guest bedroom and one is empty except for a cat litter pan. I keep those doors shut (swinging cut out door for cat) and also close the vent/cold air returns.
No sense heating rooms for nothing!

 

[JeffHK454]

Wood furnaces are designed to have a certain amount of air moved across their fire boxes...lots of air moving doesn't mean a warmer house. I have two 800 cfm blowers on my wood furnace and when I combined that with the 2200 cfm of my ng furnace I could move a bunch of air around my house but it was only lukewarm at best. With damn near 4K cfm the curtains where blowing five feet in the air !

 

[Circle B MN]

The majority of us with outdoor boilers use the homes existing furnace fan to blow across the heat exchanger from the wood boiler which is installed in the homes duct work. Not going to hurt the furnace a bit and the cost is minimal at best. I think it would be a good way to even the temperatures in the house. Probably cost more to run the lights in the house unless you've moved to CFL or LED.

 

[Whitespider]

Spidey do you just use your blowers from the wood furnace.

Actually I mounted a large(r), three speed furnace blower on the DAKA rather than use those smaller (and noisy) twin blowers. I have it wired so it automatically changes speed depending on demand.

I mounted one of the DAKA blowers on the "stovace" when I moved it into the shop... keeping the other as a backup.

 

[Photog95]

My furnace fan just turns on automatically if it gets too hot in the furnace. I always know I have a good fire going when the furnace kicks in. Most of the time it does not run but occasionally with some really dry stuff or I leave the draft open too far it will kick in and keep things from overheating.

 

[redfin]

I like to sleep with the bedroom cooler, but when wifey says she's cold in there the furnace fan goes on until she is warm.

I would leave it run all day instead of using oil @3.65 a gallon.

 

[woodchuck357]

You could run your furnace fan 24/7 and barely tell the difference in the electricity bill. Check out the plate on the motor for the exact wattage use.

 

[reaperman]

Running the blower in the winter is no different than running the blower with a central air conditioner in the summer. If your cooling your home with central air, I doubt your power bill will change much at all.