DIYbanter - View Single Post - 24-7 Furnace Blower with Unheated Rooms

The Daring Dufas[_8_]

On 12/16/2012 12:01 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 16 Dec 2012 00:59:26 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 12/15/2012 11:18 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
I've been running my furnace blower 24-7 for the past few years. I find
it keeps the house temperature more even, especially in the summer. Now
that winter is here, I'm wondering if it's still makes sense.

The boys have moved out and the girls are away at college most of the
winter. I have turned off the heat ducts to their rooms and keep the
doors closed.

We keep the living areas at about 68 and the master bedroom a bit cooler
by closing the heat ducts slightly.

I just went into the boys' room and it's 62. That got me wondering. The
cold air returns in the 2 unheated rooms are still open. Am I wasting
more energy than the evenness is worth by drawing the colder return air
from the unheated rooms, recirculating it with the 24-7 blower thus
causing the furnace to come on more often?

I wonder if I should build covers for the cold air returns in the 2
unheated bedrooms and block them or maybe even stop running the fan 24-7
since I'm only really concerned with the temperature on the first floor.

The only problem you may have is the same problem the elderly mother of
a late friend of mine had while she was still alive. When my friend died
me and the guys adopted his elderly mother and helped her when she
called and she was having a problem with her heat cutting off. The old
woman would get cold so she ran the thermostat pretty high. She had
closed of her son's room and register along with another room she wasn't
using. Her heat kept shutting down due to overheating of the combustion
chamber in the furnace. Closing the registers kept the airflow through
the furnace too low thus it would overheat and the high limit would shut
down the whole thing. There might be a way to disable some of the
burners if you wind up with the same sort of problem. You may be able to
find out the minimum required airflow through your furnace for it to
operate properly by contacting the manufacturer. ^_^

TDD
The advantage of a 2 stage furnace with variable speed DC blower

Is that the kind of furnace Derby Dad has? O_o

TDD