dust and my furnace

[Larry Levinson]

am in desperate need for advice about my basement woodshop and the furnace/central air unit. we share the same space, with no separation. the local utility guy just told me on the phone that my options are as follows, or I will kill the unit ...

1) Turn off the unit while working (freeze the family.) at the end of the session, open the front, vacuum it out and the area immediately around it before turning it back on.

2) Box in the unit and figure out someway to supply air.

a) new outside air supply? sounds expensive. b) louvered opening in the ``wall'' that backs on to the laundry room? (lint issues, but obviously much less than sawdust.) c) cut the access door, with louvers, in the laundry room wall, which would elimate the workspace used by SWMBO for her jewelery hobby.

what do all you guys do about this?

REALLY want to avoid having to move to the garage ...

TIA

Larry Levinson Talking up to the vocal ... LLevinson*Bloomberg.net (remove the star etc ....)

[Larry Levinson]

I had duct taped an extra furnace filter to the front of the furnace, but

1) it apparently did not block enough of the dust... and 2) the PSE&G guy said it was restricting air flow sufficiently to be a problem in itself.

Jim Moyseenko wrote:

Larry Levinson Talking up to the vocal ... LLevinson*Bloomberg.net (remove the star etc ....)

[Jim Moyseenko]

Could you make cheese cloth filters to place over any openings and then clean the cheesecloth once in awhile?

Jim Moyseenko [e-mail]

[George]

Possibly you were on the right track...how about making a box to attach to the furnace that holds an air filter AND has its own blower to draw air through this secondary filter? That way you won't add any stress to the furnace as long as you draw sufficient air.

[Phil]

I guess I'm confused as to why it would kill the unit. For years I shared the same space. Gas furnace. Conditioned intake air for duct work comes thru a filter. Yes it has to be replaced more often. Firebox air goes out the flu. I would think any fine particulate would burn. They are seperated by a heat exchanger. What am I missing.

Phil

Larry Lev> am in desperate need for advice about my basement woodshop and the

[Nova]

Although I've recently replaced my furnace with an enclosed unit using outside air for combustion, my shop arrangements have been the same as your for over 25 years. On the old furnace the cold air return was directly ducted to the furnace. The only air draw from the shop was for combustion.

I dealt with the problem by:

1. Using quality filters changed twice during each heating season.
2. Vacuuming out the filter at least once a month (more often when extensive work was being done).
3. Vacuum out the combustion chamber at the beginning and end of each heating season. With A/C since the unit would run all year I would vacuum out the cooling coils as well, performing the filter change and cleaning on a 3 month cycle, vacuuming the filter every month.

The old furnace I had didn't have A/C. It was installed in 1976 and replaced 1n 2002. There was nothing wrong with the furnace but my wife wanted A/C so being over 25 Y/O I thought it best to have it replaced.

-- Jack Novak Buffalo, NY - USA (Remove "SPAM" from email address to reply)

[Toller]

I would post this question on alt.hvac, or whatever it is called.

My 2 cents is that the furnace man was probably right, dust and burned dust could foul it, but I really don't know.

[Dave Balderstone]

We had to add a combustion air intake when we put a new furnace in here

3 years ago.

Punched a hole in the outside wall and add a vent, then added insulated (it's freaking cold here in the winter) flexible hose that runs between the joists and drops to floor level behind the furnace.

It was done as part of the install so I don't know cost, but the toughest part was punching through the wall as there was concrete between the 2 x 12s.

I can take a couple of pics if you want to see detail, but it'll have to wait to Friday as I'm travelling tomorrow.

djb

[Dave]

when I was a kid my grandfather use to have a shop in our basement (10 feet from the furnace) and worked at least 4 or 5 days a week in the shop. There was no dust collection system. That furnace was finally replaced 25 years later

[Larry Levinson]

well, I didn't see the inside of the unit, but apparently it was packed with dust ... we noticed a definite performance issue with it last night, hence the call to the service guy and the diagnosis ... You got too much gunk in this thing.

If I had a really good sig file, this is where it would go ....

[Larry Levinson]

many thanks for any help you can render ...

If I had a really good sig file, this is where it would go ....