I absolutely believe that knowledge is power. And if I’m being honest, I never considered trying to run my HVAC furnace off a battery. Why? Because it seems like a real waste of precious battery power, especially since I can keep warm other ways. But that doesn’t mean you and I shouldn’t be aware of how to run a furnace using an inverter. The following video explains how, though I have a few concerns:
Assuming you watched the video, the guy shows taking the furnace cover off and wiring up an inverter (you’ll want a large one, like the Energizer I use along with heavy-duty cables and clamps to make it easier to connect to a vehicle) to large battery from his camper, then connecting those cables to the main furnace wires. That’s all fine, but you REALLY need to be comfortable working with electrical before attempting such things.
That said, the first concern I had was when he mentioned you could run the furnace for days in such a way, but that’s clearly not the case considering that most furnaces appears to use at least several hundred watts of power when running. That amount of power will deplete most vehicle batteries within hours by my math. Perhaps if you only ran the furnace for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time every few hours then you *could* run your heater for days, but you would have to be fairly stingy with usage.
The second concern I had was regarding safety. This just doesn’t look very safe to me. You’ve got exposed wires, including live wires from the breaker box, a pigtail connection which I can’t imagine is to code, and no ground. I try my best NOT to know much about my HVAC unit and the outside air conditioner, but even some commenters suggest there are better/safer ways to make such connections. I would strongly encourage you to consult a HVAC technician if this idea interests you.
The third problem I had is that heating your entire house is overkill if you’re trying to survive the cold during a power outage. Obviously, you can shut all unnecessary floor vents to redirect the heat, but there are easier ways to heat a small room than running the furnace. In so doing, you can save precious battery power for other things, like running a refrigerator or powering lights.
So, why do I bring this up if I only seem to be bashing on it? Like I said, knowledge is power. Who knows when or why this information may be of use to me or you. More specifically, if you do use natural gas (or, I guess, propane) for heat, then this could be a viable option to continue to heat your home so long as the natural gas continues to flow. My understanding is that the natural gas supply lines are quite robust, which means you could expect to have natural gas during most disaster scenarios. If that’s the case, and so long as you can continue to power the furnace without undue burden on other uses, then this could end up being useful information to know.
Like I said at the start, I never expected to use my furnace to heat our home during a lengthy power outage, but we do use natural gas for heat, and I am working on more robust off-grid power, so now that I realize this is possible, then it’s in the realm of consideration if/when times get tough.
Perhaps it will be for you as well.
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