Furnace Advice Needed

[toggleswitch]

Hi Chris:

with all due respect you said:

~This type of furnace gets 350 degrees hotter, be sure that she keeps this heater on 75. If not, the whole house will catch fire.

What gets 350*F hotter? The gillle/vent? The heated air being delivered?, the shell (outer casing)of the unit?
Why is 75*F the magic number? Says who?

The setting of the room thermostat should make little to no difference in the safety of the unit.

Floor furnaces tend to present an unncessary danger to children.

To me they make little sense in climates up north, especially when even heat distribution is needed. Ditto when a central furnace that is already ducted is being replaced why would you want a glorified "room" heater?

Assuming gas or oil fired, they do offer an option to someone who has electric baseboard heat (HINT HINT) but a wall furnace or a console furnace are still, IMHO, better and safer options.

Now Danny-boy, what's up with this furnace in a furnace deal?
methinks pics are in order. So the next time you ar in Nebraska........

 

[sudsmaster]

Floor furnace? Huh?

I would have thought that floor furnaces have been coded out of existence by now.

I've lived in a number of flats in the SF area that had a floor furnace as the sole source of heat. They are sort of ok in a mild climate, and it can be nice to stand over one to get nice and warm, but they don't seem to be particularly efficient and they do have some definite safety issues as Toggle has pointed out. Not to mention the propensity of young children to drop various things into the grate (including parts of themselves) which may or may not smell so nice the next time the furnace is turned on.

 

[toggleswitch]

$20 says some idiot puts a rug over it.........

Floor Furnace.

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www.cozyheaters.com

 

[compactc9]

Speaking of things smelling up a floor furnace...

One time my mom actually dropped a plastic pen cap into one, as soon as the furnace kicked on a few minutes later, the entire building began to rak or burning plastic. I would imagine a fine mesh screen under the grate would help with this issue. But then the grate would have to be easily unlocked and lifted up to make vacuuming it clean easy.

 

[cammurray22]

RE: Floor Furnace

The furnace itself gets 350 degrees hotter. They come with a special key.

 

[Cybrvanr]

not quite sure why a floor furnace would catch a house on fire if it is not turned up enough, that doesn't make any sense. If the unit is discharging 350degree heat though , then something is really wrong with it! Yes, that kind of heat output would catch a home on fire! I imagine they probably don't get much over 200 degree output temp (although their inside components could get up to 350 or so)

If your home currently has a floor furnace, I would replace it with a new floor furnace, but also, I would install a ducted heating system. The advantage of the floor furnace is that it does not require any electricity to operate! Power outages are all too common around here during the winter. We've had rolling blackouts during major cold snaps, and ice storms frequently damage the lines. A floor furnace would be a real saviour during one of these instances! While they are nice for a backup, their natural-draft flues,higher temps needed to start convection, and the lack of distribution ductwork impede their efficiency to probably only in the 70 percent range or so, and like others have mentioned, you probably don't want to run one all the time due to safety factors if you have children around.

I believe the building codes around here don't allow you to install them anymore. They were the most popular form of heating in many homes in this city built postwar till about the late 60's. Many powered by gas, while others were a wick-style oil burner. Most of the wick style ones were converted to gun type early on due to the attention they required to operate (only issue is that the gun types need electricity) Better get a floor furnace quickly however, I imagine with all the energy regulations going down right now, they could be legislated out of existence due to their low efficiency ratio! (or they will end up going to a more modern style with a forced air draft blower, and an air blower for interior heat which would be useless as a backup system!)

 

[cammurray22]

Marvair HTG & A/C

Try Marvair! It was being in all of the Chatham County schools
out here in town. They're still being used (old and new models).

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www.marvair.com