[donatello09]

I purchased a Harman wood / coal furnace model SF-2500 (forced hot air system) and am tying into my existing forced hot air oil furnace 2 zone system and do not know how to tie into the existing thermostats and zones. I wish to still use the 2 separate zones for the bedrooms and the main body of the house respectively.
I would like to make a manual "dump" zone for the basement where the furnace is located to blow off excess heat and to be able to manually turn on the blower to have the basement heated when desired. The Harman furnace kit came with an additional thermostat. I am not sure how this would tie into my existing control panel and thermostats or work independently without the oil furnace kicking on. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
- Donatello09

[hvac1000]

I suggest if you are going to try to tie this into your present control system you better find a HVAC professional with a boat load of low voltage control experience. With your present zone system you may have to upgrade the entire control system to allow the additional controls for the wood burner you are talking about. The first thing that needs to be done is to draw a complete schematic diagram of your present control system including all manufacturers names and part numbers and include all this info on the document along with all the wiring and color codes.

Once this is done a determination can be made as to weather or not your existing system can be used or not and a calculation of costs can be made. Expect to pay for this work to be done by the professional hired to do this part of the job unless you feel you can do it yourself. BTW just the dump zone as you call it will require sheet metal work and then you will have to purchase a motorized actuator and control system for it.

Once a decision is made by you then you can price all the items, see where you are at financially and then order up any extra parts necessary and the job can begin. I have been through this and many other control systems and it is to time consuming to do on this board. It is also better to have it done local since the person you choose can actually see the system you have now which makes the job just that much easier.
NOTE: One wrong maneuver on low voltage control systems will cause a lot of smoke and damage which usually means the new or existing parts you just bought will have to be replaced. This is why I suggest an on site professional since if they smoke the circuits they get to pay for the replacements.

Now you might be able to just hook up the thermostat you got with the wood burner and use a relay or two to activate the blowers on the air handler/oil furnaces but you will not get the control you are looking for by doing this simple setup.

Back in the 70's and part of the 80's when wood was in vogue in this area my corporation installed many wood boilers and furnaces. People really liked them when new but as time went on the wood burners just turned out to be too much work for the average person. Cut,split,stack,carry in,load and then remove the ashes. Not my idea of a good time at all.