DAKA wood furnace

[@waldo686]

I'll update here, I moved and the house was sold with the wood furnace, the guy that bought it loves the wood furnace(i wasn't going to move it twice,..its a heavy sob!) he added extra vents on top to hit the coldest rooms, the supply side was only 4" vents so thats why the heat didn't hit the whole home very good when i lived there, he is keeping the dual daka blowers for now since they are there and free, but i told him that my former co-worker got the same stove and did something similar to dakas website where you can mount a blower motor on the side of this wood furnace and he has excellent results for heatings his 1 level rambler!

[@LuckySafeHaven]

The first burn you do should NOT be indoors if you buy this furnace, I recommend doing it outside. The manual even says don't do the first burn unless you have a well ventilated area,.....well I'm the dumb ass.. Ha seems to me this DAKA company should burn the stove at their plant first before sending out common! Secondly who did you contract to make you Phenom for the Hot Air side and Cold air return Side? Seems there are some interesting adaptive people out there installing these. I like to run the black stove pipe right out the tiny service chimney in this old house along with they Gas water heater and existing central gas furnace. I have couple questions? Do you know if there is a problem running the type b exhaust pipe along side the stainless steel exhaust pipe how close can they be to each other! If you do design a larger top hot air riser for your stove share you design.. Wishing you the Best! Thanks for sharing!

[@walt4690]

+LuckySafeHaven Joyce I was the dumb ass that did the first burn inside too, woof that was a bad idea! You're right daka should do the first burn at the factory so its not so bad when we fire them up the first time. Your 1st Question: "Secondly who did you contract to make you Phenom for the Hot Air side and Cold air return Side?" I did not contract anyone I did all of the work myself, not sure what you mean by ?Phenom? did you mean plenum? i bought butterfly dampers online because it was cheaper than locally, and all the pipe I bought at a local hardware store I built my own fan box, (or at least added onto the one that comes with the stove) with flat peices of sheet metal from menarnds and bent them and riveted them together. 2nd Question: "I like to run the black stove pipe right out the tiny service chimney in this old house along with they Gas water heater and existing central gas furnace. I have couple questions? Do you know if there is a problem running the type b exhaust pipe along side the stainless steel exhaust pipe how close can they be to each other!" This furnace requires a minimum of a 6" round inner diameter stove pipe for exhaust, you should make sure youre existing chimney is equal or greater to that. Plumbing code requires that wood burning must be separately vented from gas appliances, at least here in MN, and I would I assume the USA as well, so you cannot mix combustibles in the same flue pipe. As far as running the exhausts side by side in an interior space, they should be allowed to be run next to eachother assuming that they are both metal, and not plastic/pvc(anywhere where there is a chance that due to heating fumes would be released), but consult a local HVAC guy for questions to be certain. 3rd Question: "If you do design a larger top hot air riser for your stove share you design" I moved away, from this house & sold the furnace to the new homeowner, so alas I won't be able to, got married and am looking for a new home to burn wood in at the moment!

[@LuckySafeHaven]

Howdy wd S appreciate your comments. Yes Wood burners are getting better. Had interesting conversation with a AC&R HVAC gut tonight about the advantages disadvantages. I will try to be impartial to a point. He main concern is the times the wood stoves smoke up the house.. I am sure we all have that happen,, So Congrats on the Marriage wishing you the best. I will try to post more the process like to hear from the rest of your alternative heat solutions from every one..

[@benthepoet]

Looks like a nice setup, I'm possibly thinking about picking one of these up myself. Are you only using the DAKA blowers (no assistance from the main furnace) to circulate the hot air through your ductwork? And also did you put a damper in the main plenum to prevent the DAKA from blowing back into it?

[@waldo686]

I'm using 2 blowers, when someone purchases the wood furnace, it comes with 1. I had a co-worker buy the furnace at the same time I got mine and he opted for a much larger blower.He got a used squirrel cage fan from a local hvac guy and sold me his original blower. So I have 2 identical blowers, which I could have bought from daka. I found them online for around $200. slightly cheaper than daka offers. but not much cheaper. I built my own dual filter box with duct work parts from menards and a rivet gun. As for the dampers. there are 2 8" outlets on the top of the wood furnavce. I found 2 online for $20 each free shipping and used those, just set them right where the air comes out from the wood furnace. that prevents the propane furnace from blowing back into the wood furnace. I never had my cold air return tied into the wood furnace when I made this video, but I'm in the process of doing that now. One recommendation I have is to do what my co worker did and get a large squirrel cage fan and use that in place of the daka blowers if you have a large home. the 2 blowers i have do not put out a huge volume of air compared to my propane furnace There is no assitance from the main furnace by the way. the wood furnace has a stat thats mounted on the side that kicks on the blowers once the air box is hot, and it runs until the aiir box gets cold enough. I plumbed the 2 8" outlets directly into the air vents that my propane furnace would feed. I have seen people run it into the cold air line, but they have to fun their regular furnace's fan all the time, and that just eats up the electric bill running another fan all of the time

[@walt4690]

+Ben Hanna I'll update since its been a while, I used only the daka blowers for my leaky 2 story house, should have upgaded to a large squirrel cage fan(daka sells one that mounts on a side, but you can find one cheaper than they offer). the top of the furnace has space to cut in more outlets for the heat. I opted to cut 2 more 6" holes and fed the main floor and 2nd floor that had their own duct runs, and noticed a big improvement in heatflow. Its one of the cheapest whole house wood furnaces you can buy, if you have an old drafty home, you can modify it like i have to get the best efficiency and air movement from it. if you have a small well insulated space, then this furnace off the shelf will likely suit your needs, but come my minnesota winters I could feel the cold air coming into the house when it got real windy and needed to soup up my furnace a bit

[@johnLt500r]

It's not obvious from the video but where is the return air duct in this installation? Also how is the air prevented from going the wrong direction in your existing duct system?

[@waldo686]

john at the time I recorded this i did not have this tied into the return air of the furnace, at 0:43 you can see the air filter box. when I did connect it to my return air, I covered the opening where you can see the air filter with a piece of flat metal duct work, then cut 2 - 8"round openings for the return air. now as far as accidently having the air flow the wrong direction, the are two butterfly dampers on top of the wood furnace that only allows air to flow in one direction, also the fan on the daka furnace only blows into the air box surrounding the fire box, so it cannot reverse flow.

[@johnLt500r]

waldo686 but what keeps the air from circulating the wrong direction through the existing propane furnace when just the wood furnace fan is on?

[@waldo686]

john the propane furnace and the wood furnace each have their own blower fans, when the firebox gets hot enough the fans on the wood furnace engage and only blow into the supply side of the existing duct work, and draw air from the return side. I know it's not in the video, but I put the return lines to the wood furnace pretty far away from the propane return. I could have installed another back flow damper, but I didn't feel that it was necessary