Coal-Trol Hook-Up to Furnance Blower

I'm buying the Pioneer model from Leisure Line (adding an additional 265 CFM’s blower). The stove will be in my first floor family room, vented through the existing fireplace. Does anyone know if I can wire my Coal-Trol to my furnance blower. My objective is when the Coal-Trol kicks on the blower in my house furnance will start running and obviuosly stop when the Coal-Trol kicks off.

gil

Theres no reason why that can't be done. Sounds like a good idea.

As an alternative plan, What I did was set up my furance blower to run at 20% RPM, 24x7. That way, hot air gets circulated thru the entire house from the woodburner and the coal stove. In addition, the warmed air passes thru the whole house filter and humidifier
If I ever fire up the oil burner, the blower will automatically ramp up to 100% RPM.
Of course you have to have a variable speed blower motor to do this.

Thanks for the reply. We did not have a variable speed blower motor as a part of our propane furnance. That's why I was concidering wiring the blower to the Coal-Trol. Now I just need to figure out how to do it. Can I replace my existing blower with a variable speed blower motor?

Sorry about the spelling. No spell check and fast typing.

Most furnace blowers are too large (too much current draw) to wire them into the convection output of the Coal-trol.

There are two options for doing this:

1) Install a temperature limit snap switch onto the body of the stove, perhaps in the top air channel. This switch can be wired to the furnace fan control circuit in parallel with the existing circuit (same circuit your furnace thermostat uses to turn the blower on manually). When the temp reaches above the trigger point it will kick the furnace on. This would or something similar is the Leisure Line recommended way of doing this kind of extra furnace blower control.

2) You can either custom order your Coal-trol from Leisure Line or send it to us once you get it, to have additonal "aux fan" contacts installed. These are separate from the variable speed convection motor output/plug which you'd be using for your on stove blowers. You would wire these additional contacts into the same control circuit and in the same way as in #1, but you will be able to control at which feedrate the furnace blower is turned on within the Coal-trol.

Both work. Some like the option #1 better especially for when the coal stove is ducted inline with the cold air return of the furnace, since this arrangement benefits from the blower turning on only when the coal stove is hot enough to get warm air to the vents in the house. However, for your situation, since you are not ducting the coal stove directly into the furnace and using it for primary heat distribution, option #2 can probably be just as effective and offer more adjustments and easier installation overall.

Thanks Paul. I sent your email onto Jerry with my stove order.

Gil,
please update this thread when you get it all installed, and don't forget the PICTURES, PICTURES, and more PICTURES
Good luck with the stove.

Will do. I'm expecting to install in Sept.

I also have my stove in my first floor family room heating about 1200 sf or so just one floor(I block off the top of the stairs so heat can't rise up there). My backup heating source is an oil furnace with forced hot air. I thought of the same idea that I could just go down to the basement and flip my manual switch for my FHA and move the air around the house. Unfortunately it never seemed to work. All the ducts in the house are uninsulated and they all pass through the cold basement. I think this is the primary problem of my whole plan.

After much headache inducing thought and totalling costs I just fiddled with my oil burners thermostat setting(old analog dial)and got it adjusted where it came on half a dozen times or so during the coldest part of the day(nightime)and ran about 5-10 minutes each time,this evened out temperatures between upstairs and downstairs,used 1/4 tank of oil all winter,gave the furnace a little run time to keep it from rusting up and falling apart,and my pioneer did a fine job of heating a non-insulated 1800 sq. ft. farmhouse on a little less than 6 tons of coal.No expensive or time consuming modifications or trick gadgets to fool with. RichB

I got the Stove!!!!!!!!! A Pioneer LE with an added 265 CFM fan. The Coal-Trol has been customized so that it will turn on my house furnance blower when the stove ramps up. I'll post pics this weekend. For those of you looking for a stove I can not say enough good things about Jerry, his wife Karen, and the Leisure Line products. Customer service and quality are the highest.

One problem..... in preparing to run the stove pipe up my chimney I can not figure out how to remove the damper thing that opens and closes the chimney. It looks like it can not be removed. My house is 10 years old and the wood fireplace is a prefab thing from a company called Majestic Fireplaces.

Any ideas,

gil

gil wrote:I got the Stove!!!!!!!!!
I can not figure out how to remove the damper thing that opens and closes the chimney. It looks like it can not be removed. My house is 10 years old and the wood fireplace is a prefab thing
Any ideas,

gil

Gil, good news on the Stove! Post some pics!
For the damper on the pre-fab, If the pipe won't go around it while its open, a saw-zall will always work. Last resort though.
I hate pre-fabs. I removed ours when I bought the house, and put in the FireplaceXtrordinair.

I think I might have to saw the hindes to remove the damper. The damper hinges through the center of the damper.

I also have a wood mantel above the stove. The stove will be 10" below and 15" in front of the mantel (from the back of the stove). I post pics tonight of my fireplace and the stove so I can get feedback about any possible issues in my installation. Ordering coal for delivery this month, bagged Reading Rice coal at $230/ton delivered. I'm trying to decide how much (4 -6 tons).