Temporary furnace venting
I’m doing a total renovation of a 2 story home, and need to remove the chimney. Currently there are 2 older forced air furnaces in the basement(one for each floor) that vent into the chimney along with the water heater. After renovation I will have a Polaris water heater providing both the heat for RFH and hot water, which will be vented out the sidewall. My problem is that I need to remove the chimney now to get it out of the way, but still need the furnaces for this winter’s heat. I can go ahead and install the Polaris for hot water, but will somehow need to vent the furnaces. They are about 15 feet from the basement wall. Is it possible to vent older furnaces through the side wall this far away? We are living in the house during construction, and I don’t want to do anything unsafe which would risk my family. Although in our town I can do such work on my own home, this is one job I plan to bring in a professional HVAC guy for (the venting only). I am just needing some ideas of what could be done.
Thanks for any help.
Replies
I asked this a little while ago and the answer is, unless your furnace is designed for direct vent you cannot do it. I ended up putting in B vent to replace the chimney. When I am finished with my construction and the furnaces are moved I will have to remove it and sheath/shingle the hole in the roof, and fix the hole in the ceiling. A pain but the only safe way to do it.
Robert
Since you need to take the chimney out now, I suppose you can't just run some new double wall vent in its place as it too would be in the way. You might need to bite the bullet and move the furnaces temporarily to a location that would be ventable.
Actually you can do it but it is expensive. What you need is a sidewall vent booster fan. Two mfr. are Tjernlund
http://www.tjernlund.com/default.htm
and Exhausto
http://www.us.exhausto.com/
There are too many variables to come up with a safe solution here. Bite the bullet and get an HVAC guy to help you (and not just with the venting - get those furnaces cleaned and tuned, too
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Thanks for all the input. I'll get my HVAC guy out soon.