Clearance for Pellet Stove Near Minisplit Head
I’m planning on installing a pellet stove in my” pretty good house” and the best place for it is very near our minisplit heat pump head unit.
The side of the pellet stove would be about a 10″ away (horizontally) and the top of the pellet stove would be about 30″ away (vertically) below the head unit. Is this going to be an issue?
I can’t find any environmental operating temperature specifications for my Fujitsu ASU15RLS3 head unit. I know that the pellet stove is mostly convective heating, with some radiant heat, but I also don’t know what its radiant heat temperature. I’m concerned that the constant very warm temperatures will affect the longevity of the head unit.
Any input would be appreciated.
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Your pellet stove probably lists clearance to combustible surfaces, both above and to the sides and rear. At a minimum, you MUST keep the head out of this zone. The further the better of course. The minisplit probably also has functional temperature ranges, both for operation and storage. That information should be in the specifications somewhere. I would think you can find it for the head itself, but if not, perhaps at the system level. You could easily see air temperatures of 150-200 degrees in that location and that might be outside the allowable range for the head. Aesthetics might be a challenge, but some sort of heat shield could work to guide the warm air away from the head for the most part.
Functionally, there are certainly pros & cons to this arrangement. In "fan only" mode, the head would help to distribute the warm air from the stove, so that's a plus. You will lose some heating efficiency in the head if it is ingesting warm air, so operating them at the same time probably doesn't make much sense. Then again, if you've got a PGH, you won't need them at the same time, as the stove will probably overheat the house by itself. Beyond that, there might be some effect on longevity of the electronics in the head from warm air operation.
Peter
Good point; the pellet stove I'm considering lists the clearances to combustible materials as 6" on sides and 12" on top so I'll be good with that.
The head unit specifications only list the operating temperature range which is 60-90degF, which must be the output temperature, not the ambient temperature limits.
If those are listed as operating temperature range, that's exactly what they are. The unit is not designed to operate outside those limits, as those are the typical limits of anything resembling comfort in indoor air. I'm sure that it would still work to heat air in a space that starts in the 40's or 50's or cool air that starts in the 90's, but it won't work well and you wouldn't want to do that all the time. That still doesn't help much with its allowable "storage" temperature when it's just hanging on the wall near the stove and not operating.