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Found 61 results for the keyword(s) ‘Furnace’

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    WHAT IS A SEALED FURNACE ROOM & WHY IS IT NOT RECOMMENDED?

    Traditional furnace rooms are nothing more than a partition designed to hide an ugly furnace. They are neither sealed nor insulated, and they obtain combustion air from the house through door or wall grills of the open floor joist area. Sealing off the drafty leaks in a house and introducing a sy...
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    WHAT IS OIL DOWNSIZING?

    One morning the oil furnace and boiler companies woke up to discover they were the Canadian bad guys -- everybody was condemning oil burning heating and the government was even paying people to scrap them. The oil furnace and boiler companies had to admit that they had been pretty contented and l...
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    OVERVIEW:Improper exhaust fans can pollute your home -- could even kill you

    More and more people are asking for powerful kitchen range hoods or bathroom exhaust fans. The logic appears simple, increase the power of the exhaust fan and get rid of pollutants quicker. In more and more modern homes which have been weather-stripped and sealed against cold air leaks and heat l...
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    Where should basement furnace ducts be placed?

    Doug from Manilla, Ontario checked this site for basement heating systems: "I read the section? on cold air returns in the basement, however I could not find anything on where hot air vents should be placed. Do they need to be at the floor level or at the ceiling level?" In the house above the f...
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    What are the options in furnace air filters?

    A minimum filter is designed to protect the furnace fan from large dust balls -- not to protect your health.   ONE INCH FILTERS You can start upgrading from there. One of the best of the 1 inch filters is called Filtrete from 3M. It's an electrostatic filter that becomes charged as the air pas...
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    WHAT IS AN AIR-TO-AIR HEAT EXCHANGER, HRV and ERV?

    Air-change ventilation systems exist that take stale air out and bring fresh air in so as to not rely on cold air drafts for the entry of fresh air to the house. They are simply a box with two fans. In a few of the warm spots of Canada these are legitimate systems on their own. In most of Canada ...
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    Cleaning Electronic Air Filters

    When clean, electronic air filters are the most efficient furnace filters on the market - according to research at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. When dirty, they don't filter much at all. When in-between they can give off ozone. If you're a lazy homeowner, they probably won't do m...
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    WHAT IS A COMBUSTION FRESH AIR SUPPLY?

    FURNACES & BOILERS Well-sealed houses need a fresh air supply for combustion. (search keyword "Combustion Air" for the title "DOES MY FURNACE GET ENOUGH AIR?") The most common technique in basement installations, is to use an insulated duct to dump air next to the combustion intake.  The gas...
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    WHAT'S AVAILABLE IN NEW FURNACES?

    The field of energy efficient heating systems is advancing rapidly and constantly and I cannot evaluate all the new products here. Remember that it usually takes a company a couple of years to work the bugs out of new products. And some companies try so hard just for novelty that... for example i...
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    The room heater is in the ceiling fan!

    That is an interesting idea. Put the heater on the ceiling as part of a ceiling fan which assures that all that extra heat up there gets circulated all around the room. Room light, ceiling fan for summer cooling and heating unit for winter heating all in one unit. Add to that a remote control za...
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