Vent/Air intake for heater room

[RogerT]

I am in the process of closing in (building walls around) a basement heater room. The room will contain 3 gas heating furnaces (80,000 BTU's each) and

3 gas hot water heaters (30 gallons each -- I don't know the BTU's). The room size will be 8 feet by 7 feet 4 inches, and 8 feet high.

To allow for adequate air in the room for combustion, I was thinking of providing some type of air intake from the outside/exterior of the property. I think the other option would be to have vents in the walls to the adjacent rooms which would allow for more air intake. But, I think the best option may be to have an air intake from the outside.

My question is, are their specific types of vents for this purpose? For example, are there air intake vents that come with dampers that usually stay closed but will open when there is a draw created by the combustion in the furnaces and hot water heaters? Or, are there other ways to approach this so there will be adequate air for combustion for the 3 furnaces and 3 hot water heaters?

[RBM]

You may want to look into a "Field controls" unit called air in a can. The proper model would be CAS-4, or similar. This unit sits on the floor of the boiler room and is ducted to the outside. It pulls in make up air for combustion. The units can be wired in a variety of ways, but typically a burner call will start the unit, once the unit is running and pulling in air, it allows the burner to fire.

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[Bill]

For rooms like this, I've typically seen 2 vents... One vent with its opening near the floor, and the other with its opening near the ceiling. More...

[Joe]

Might be a good idea to head down to city hall and get their code requirements. If you need a permit/inspection then you will be legal.

Joe

[RogerT]

Thanks. I did a Google search and checked it out. I didn't quite understand it all but I'm still looking into it.

[RogerT]

Thanks for the link to the article. The gas furnaces I have are burners/boilers for gas hot water heat -- so there's no forced hot air or gravity hot air heat. So far, it looks like I will be going with upper and lower vents to the heater room.