Removing A Wood Stove Furnace And Replacing It With A Modern Furnace: How It's Done
Walk into the basement of any home older than a hundred years and you may still find a remnant of yesteryear. It is the wood stove furnace in the basement. These old stoves burned either chopped wood or coal, depending on the homeowner's personal preference, and they vented out of the chimney on the roof. The heat was more or less reliant upon conduction and the scientific principle that heat rises, although some of these antiquated heating methods also had ventilation shafts connected to them in a very rudimentary sort of way. If your home is old enough to have one of these stoves in the basement, it is time to remove it and replace it with something else because the stove itself is a major fire hazard. Here is how that process would go.
Blowtorch Disassembly
These old stoves were almost always cast iron, which makes them extremely solid, dense, and heavy. It also means that they are impossible to remove without taking them apart piece by piece. A blowtorch and/or welder's torch can cut the stove up into manageable pieces. Such tools can also excise the bolts that hold this stove to your basement floor. Once the whole stove is in several manageable pieces, the pieces are carried up and out of your home to a waiting truck.
Hole Filling and Ventilation Updates
If your new, modern furnace cannot utilize the small bolt holes left in the floor from removing the old stove, the HVAC contractor will fill these holes with concrete. While that concrete dries, the contractor will begin working on the ventilation, which will need to be updated to work with your new furnace. Once the ventilation is complete, the furnace installation comes next.
Installing the New Furnace
Finally, the contractor will haul the new furnace into the house and down the stairs. He/she will position it so that the new vents fit into the furnace and then secure the new vents to the furnace. If the floor is uneven, the contractor will find a way to balance the furnace such that it is level so that there are no issues with making connections to the vents. Finally, the contractor bolts the feet of the furnace to the floor before hooking up the electricity or gas to get the furnace started. He/she makes one final check and runs the furnace to make sure that it is running as it should.
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