Gas and Oil Home Heating Furnaces - Two Stage Stat and Cold air Intake

I have just installed a Carrier two stage furnace in my home and I have a few questions.

IS IT WORTH THE $ TO GET A TWO STAGE THERMOSTAT INSTALLED?

The manual states that either a single or two stage thermostat can be used. If the single is used then the furnace retains a memory on how it performed last and automatically does the same next time it fires.

By shutting off the furnace and you therefore reset the CPU. It will fire single and then second stage if the house is not heated in the required time.

I had a standard bear bones thermostat contected. I moved the wirering as per Jay (great trick Jay). I am using a programable thermostat that has an AC and a FAN ON option.

I'm finding that the furnace stays on a lot longer than with the standard one. I believe that it was set to 4 (minutes?). It would cycle a few times to bring the temp up.

The programable one rides on until the temp is met.

IS THIS CORRECT?

With the incoming heating air... CAN I BLOCK THIS AIR OFF?

I know, I shouldn't but boy is my basement cold. Also I would like to circulate the air in the house without the heating system firering ($). I use my air tight wood stove as a supplement and to circulate this nice warm air and include the very cold outside air seems contradicting what I am trying to do.

Thanks for ALL of the input. It is valuable for me and my renos.

Regards,

Rob in Rocky

fireweedfour :

A two stage thermostat is better because it knows what is happening in the heating cycle, the programming in the furnace processor is just guessing.

What also determines the run time of the furnace is the anticipator setting. Read the instructions that came with your stat to figure out how to set it.

fireweedfour wrote:
"With the incoming heating air... CAN I BLOCK THIS AIR OFF? "

I don't understand what you mean.

Greg;

I'm refering to the outside fresh air that is plumbed into the cold air return.

As mentioned it is inefficent to recirculate the woodstove heat with the fan of the furnace if the furnace is sucking outside air into the system. Therefore I'm considering blocking this fresh air off.

In regards to the anticipator setting. We inherited the thermostat when we bought the house. I'm having a hard time finding the insutructions.

Thanks for your help.
Rob

fireweedfour:
If you have a wood burning appliance you need a source of fresh air in the house.
Did you install the outside air duct and wood burner? Where is the wood burner located? Is the bsmt insulated? What is the style of construction of the house and bsmt? Where exactly does the outside air duct enter the furnace? Nosey eh? :D

Rob,

There is a couple of things you can do..

1- Install a Damper in the fresh air duct going into the furance return air duct.. I used to install these on the furances. and the customer has a choice of shutting off the air in the summer time to help the A/C getting too much moister in from the outside, and also when the customer wants to run the fan all the time and don't want the "Cool" draft in the winter.. and they can open it back up again when they want to bring in fresh air all the time.. If it was a 5" pipe, I used a 4" damper.. still alow the home get fresh air.


2- Remove the pipe from the return duct, and "Drop" it into a box 3' tall on the floor.. The box will fill with cold air and spills the air when it is needed.. If you just drop it to the floor, then it's going to fill the whole furnace room with cold air on the floor, and just don't feel good running in there if you have a washer and dryer in there in your boxers!

How old is your home again??

The air tight fireplaces uses it's own duct for fresh air, Right?? if that is so, then really won't be much harm cutting off SOME of the air flow in the vent.. You still want fresh air brought into the home that is lost from your bathroom/kichen fan... water heater.. and the furnace

First off thanks for repsponding and you're never to nosey in this field.

There are actually two cold air supplies. One is called the combustion air which is routed beside the furnace at approximately 8 inches off of the floor. I would like to put a 5 gallon buck under the opening. This would act like the cold well as suggest by you Jay. But it is too close to the hot water tank, yes that close, for me to manage this. So I have just blocked it off for now.

The second cold air supply is routed directly into the cold air return just above the furnace. It is not blocked off yet.

Our home is 22 years old with 2X4 construction and cedar siding. I am sorry (and afraid) to say that the builder wasn't very thorough or consciencous in his practices. Or he let the apprentice build the thing.

It is a 4 level split. Starting at the bottom is the unfinished basement (poured) with a cold room, hot water tank and furnace and storage. The previous owner was a musician, here it gets a little wierd, he used the styro foam insulation to insulate the ceiling, the unprepared cement wall and two gyprock walls (WITH GLUE! Which is taking off the paper layer of the roc when I try to remove it!). This room is app 14X14. The next floor up is the laundry, washroom and entrance to the garage. Come through another door and you have the familyroom with the wood stove.

We now go up four steps into the kitchen and living room. The living room is "sunken" and has a fireplace without an insert. We've used the fire place once and found it to be a wood eater compared to the wood stove.

Now we go up 10 stairs to the sleeping quarters. Off of the master bedroom which is 16X12 I am in the midst of finishing our bonus room. This room used to be a deck over the garage but it leak into the garage. Once I've finished to drywall it will be an office or a bedroom depending on my wife. There are two bathrooms on this level. One is an ensuite. Both are too small for my liking and I would reno to make one bathroom.

The fireplace is one year old. It was just replaced last winter. It doesn't have a direct cold air intake. The wood stove is located in the family room.

The house seems to be drafty enough to allow air seepage from many different locations besides the two cold air intakes.

Have you guys thought about the two stage thermostat at all?

Thanks again for your input and requests for info.

Rob in Rocky

fireweedfour:
If your furnace can use a two stage thermostat it would be worth the money. Your furnace will only go on high fire when it has to.

The combustion air should not be blocked off. It is a code requirement for the gas furnace. Could you not move it slightly to accomodate the bucket? As an alternative to the bucket you can install two elbows on the end of the pipe to form a U. Also the exposed pipe can be insulated.

Your building code may make the outside air connection to the furnace necessary, especially considering you have a second fireplace and likely several exhaust fans.
A heat recovery ventilator would be able to replace this.