Will this setup work?

Hi. I'm thinking of installing a cold air return from my second floor's coldest room all the way down to the basement where my leisure line stove is. I would like to make the stove part of a closed loop in the return and feed it to the return side of my first floor air handler. I have Hydro-air with a air handler in the basement and one in the attic. I would keep the first floor's air handler's fan on all the time to let it draw the air from the new second floor return through a special jacket I can make on the stove and distribute it through my first floor. Right now my basement is 75*-80* with just some heat on the fist floor. The laundry is dry in about 5 hours.
My questions are will the A coil and the water coil act like a heat sink and will I lose to much heat, or once they reach temp it shouldn't matter, and has any one tried this? I can adjust my blower speed to low at 655 CFM and save about $50 per month on my electric bill. Is this enough air? What size should I make the return from my second floor to my basement and does one type of duct flow air better than another? I have to run the return through a unheated garage, can I use a flexible insulated duct? Sorry for all the questions, been thinking of this for a while.
Thanks Mike

Let me guess, the wife doesn't want the stove on the first floor? Why not just get a coal boiler?

What model LL do you have?

I have a Hyfire 110. It's exactly like the Hyfire 1.

Hello Mike, any amount of return air coming from the second floor and returning to the Hyfire stove will vastly improve the hot air circulation in your house. You don't mention if you have open staircases that are providing a path for the heat in the basement to get upstairs.

As for the air handlers, and the amount of circulation, you will have to experiment, what works in someone elses application may not work for you. A water coil in the stove will only make a minor drop in the stove temps. But the amount of heat from a water coil in the stove will probably not be enough to keep the water in the air handler very hot. It will pull some heat from the stove, but I doubt that it will be able to keep a floor warm.

I would use a 6" insulated duct in the garage area for the return air duct, inside the house, insulation on the duct is not needed. The duct should return all the way to the inlet of one of the two circulation fans on the Hyfire stove. This way there is a good pull on the return air, pulling cool air from the upstairs.

Let us know how it works out.

Greg L

Hi Greg. Thanks for the response. I do have open staircases. I'm currently heating 1600sq feet in the basement with a 9ft ceiling and the same on the 1st and 2nd floor.

I also thought that the water coil wouldn't be much of a draw, but what do you think of the A-coil? Do you think the refrigerant will be an issue? I took a look at the coil and it's easy to leave the lines connected and pull it out of the air handler and set it aside. Do you think it's worth doing?

I'm in the process of building a jacket that eliminates the stove's fans and the jacket will incorporate the flow through those fan's passages. Hope it works.

Mike.

I don't think the "A coil' will absorb much heat, it will only absorb the heat necessary to heat the aluminum fins and coper tubes, most of the refridgerant is in the condenser and pump. .

Pulling the air from the far reaches of the house and reheating it with the stove will create the all-important circulation loop. You can use floor joist spaces and spaces between studs in inside walls. From a safety standpoint, if yu make holes through the floor/ceilings, line the opening with either drywall or sheetmetal... So the opening isn't a fire-transfer tube from one floor to the next..

Let us know how things go. And please provide photos..

Greg L

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