Aftermarket combustion air intake control

jduncan

In an idle hot water furnace, it is well understood that the furnace itself presents a serious heat loss. Such is not related to combustion efficiency as the burner is OFF (which is often most of the time) --it draws warm air out of the building, heats it with the largest, hottest convection "radiator" in the system and vents it up the chimney.

My question:
Is there an aftermarket control that turns off the combustion air intake when the furnace is idle? I thought of designing one myself, but would prefer one that is tried and tested.

I first ran across such a system about 60 years ago--it was an oil burner manufactured by Timkin. In today's world, such are standard equipment on many or most new furnaces, but how does one retrofit an old furnace?

Jamie Hall

Field Controls, among others -- several models of draught dampers. Quite common. Some of us talk the efficiency gains (minimal) and love them, some of us regard them as a potential single point of failure at oh dark hundred New Year's Eve in a blizzard and hate them.