HVAC Handyman Style (part 2)

This weekend I was finally able to continue installing my custom heat moving system.  When I last left off, all I was able to get accomplished was cutting a messy hole in the wall, but now I've got the system near completion.

After cutting the initial hole in the wall between the attic and the master bedroom, I was ready to position the fan unit in the kitchen ceiling.  The mounting instructions call for the unit to be mounted either on a joist, between joists using a hanging kit, or by building a box frame between joists. My house rarely fits neatly into the plans of modern appliance installations.  The kitchen ceiling consists of drywall mounted on hefty 1x3 strapping that is mounted to 3x8 hemlock beams spaced roughly 30" apart.  And where modern ceiling system are usually square with the walls that support them, mine is not.

If I mounted the fan unit on one of the joists it would look cockeyed to the walls in the kitchen.  For this reason, I decided to mark and cut my hole for the fan first, and then mount the fan as was needed to keep the grill cover square with the walls.

With the hole cut in the ceiling and the fan aligned in the attic, I was ready to mount it to cross pieces screwed into the 1x3 strapping.

Before I started installing the ductwork, I took care of the electrical task.

When I wired the house, I installed a spare circuit for a range hood in the kitchen in case we wanted to add one down the road.  A range hood was not in the budget for the original kitchen, and though at times it would be nice to have one, it's not a priority.  But having this unused circuit available in the kitchen attic was a big help when it came to connecting the fan unit.

The tricky part of the electrical installation was choosing a switch.  I wanted the unit to run on a thermostat, i.e. when the air in the kitchen/living room reaches a certain temperature, the fan should turn on and start moving that warm air to the cooler rooms.  The problem was finding a thermostat that was rated at 120V and worked opposite from a typical heating thermostat.  Mine would need to work  like an air-conditioning thermostat but most of those are rated only for 24 volts.

What I did find was a thermostat switch designed for controlling louvers and booster fans for ductwork.  The Suncourt DS100 to be exact.  In theory this switch is the device I need. It controls power to the device based on the ambient temperature and has settings for either heating or cooling devices.  Since its connections are made using standard grounded outlets, I needed to mount a box and receptacle in the attic.

After mounting the box and receptacle in the attic, I had to connect the previously unused circuit to a new breaker in the panel in the basement.  With the circuit connected, I was ready to test it and the fan to be sure all was working right before moving on to installing the ductwork.

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