How Long Will The EcoFlow Power Station Run My Furnace? | Power Outage Emergency Heat 

I really like learning about how to keep the furnace going when the power goes out, which happens here. Thanks.

Just a minor point about Watts vs Watt-hours: Your Ecoflow battery stores about 1000 Watt-hours of energy. Watt-hours, not Watts. Watts: On average, over the 8 hours this battery powered your furnace, it must have been drawing about 125 Watts, but of course it would be much less than that when the furnace is idle, and more when the furnace is producing heat, as it has to power the fan. Important implications: 1. To get the longest run time from your battery, turn down the thermostat 2. Run times will depend on the weather 3. Run time will depend on how well the house is insulated and how drafty it is

Good review DIY guy 🤘🏼 respect from an Ontario HVAC guy

Pretty Handy! I am a fan and have a bit smaller unit at home as well. I need to get those solar panels 👊

Another feature of the EcoFlow Delta's is that they will recharge to about 80% in about one hour when plugged into a wall outlet, generator, or inverter hooked up to a car alternator. I'd prefer to run my generator for an hour, two or three times a day, to recharge my EcoFlow than to run it hour after hour and overnight.

I have my heating oil fired boiler setup in a similar fashion. I run the Ecoflows (2) at night because their quiet and startup my dual fuel generator during the day if grid power is still down. If a winter storm is forecast I plug the EcoFlow into the grid power and the boiler into the EcoFlow and turn it on. Power is passed thru the power station but if the grid goes down the EcoFlow battery power takes over. I don't like waking up to a cold house.

Hype! these types of tests are amazing! Well done.

Wow this is pretty cool that it can run for this long. Normally I would use a generator but this is nice for over night so you can shut it off

It's good that the power bank will run the furnace for 10 hours, but one must remember that with just a 160 watt solar panel, and in the winter, it will take several days of good sunshine, to recharge your power bank back up. So that unit is really only good for a 10-hour emergency.

One of the features I like in that Delta 2 is the 500W maximum solar input. It won't take that long to charge it using my solar panels.

Something you must remember about ecoflow and similar rechargeable batteries is that your ambient room/operating temperature will greatly affect the battery discharge due to the inordinate amount of energy the battery expends on its internal cooling fans! I ran 3 tests of an ecoflow 1280 wh batteries at ambient 70 degree F room temp., powering a small 35 watt fruit dehydrator. Simple math suggests that, at even 1200 actual watt hours, a batterry should easily power the 35wh device for the 12-15 hours required to dehydrate fruit. In fact at 80degree fahrenheit ambient temperature (and no external power source such as solar or 120v) in three tests the battery barely lasted 4 hours because it consumed 35 wh when only the dehydrater was running, but the batterry fan constantly cycled and when it kicked on battery consumption consistently jumped to 610 wh. Ran this experiment a half dozen times with 2 different Deltas, results were within about 3 percent variance; nice little inverter package, but if the sun isn’t shining, then even at ambient 70f temps it’s internal fan energy draw renders it practically useless, even when only drawing a steady 35 watts over a half dozen hours. It does make a handsome doorstop, and if you have a sunny cloudless day and a few hundred watts of solar power panels properly aligned it can be useful, just not so much on a long 6:13 dark night:-)

I remember in your PREVIOUS Video- the VTOMAN Power Station gave you 14 Hours of Runtime & the EcoFlow only gave you 10 Hours! I took advantage of the $650 off coupon you linked when I purchased the VTOMAN 1000 and the TWO-100 watt Solar Panels all for $1150!, thanks Dave!

The life of the EcoFlow will depend on the size of furnace and temp outsize. Your furnace could be a 80% or 90% with a one stage or two stage. Your 90% may have a condensation pump. When you turn of the furnace it is better let it cool down with the blower motor because over time a quick turnoff could damage your heat exchangers. The heat exchangers parts maybe covered on warranty but the labor to change them is expensive.

Nice video. Just picked up the EZ Generator switch from your other video and I already had the EcoFlow Delta2 which I use in my campervan. I never thought of using the power station to supply power to my furnace. Thanks!

AWESOME VIDEO...thanks for doing these videos...our power goes out regularly here in Baltimore...and 1 week without power happens a lot...I am contemplating buying one of these battery backup systems

Nice setup for an emergency. This is a good setup for people that are electrically challenged. Simple to implement. Your electrical interconnect is just fine, but if it were me, I'd simply use a standard 3-way wall switch to route the furnace to grid or alternate source. I use them a lot for my solar projects here. When properly wired, just flip the switch! It only switches the HOT (black) wire. The neutral (white) is still tied to both grid and backup sources! Your setup with the plug may isolate both HOT and neutral wires.

This is one pretty awesome power station since it has a 5 year warranty that goes with it. My old power station only had a year of warranty then it went kaput.

Great info - I am curious as to what the furnace was using when it was in active mode (how many current watts were drawn)? I have an EcoFlow Delta Mini and plan on using it during winter power outages.

Thank you for a real practical test! In my area of Ontario Can I think we saw the sun two, maybe three times in January this year. All these other videos show people doing whole home turning things on-off (can it run a dryer?- oh yay, it started!...then turns off- as if you're actually going to run a dryer). Folks will want a furnace to run, then a fridge or freezer or both, and at most after that a light or two. These guys never advertise how long in real scenarios. I'll stick to a gas generator for now.

The efficiency of the building envelope has the biggest impact on your results. My setup would drain your item at or before 5 hours. I love my new wood heat

Lots more testing possibilities like with versus without solar panels. I would like to see how long it would power just the fridge or how many loads of laundry it could do.

Some furnaces will not operate with a floating neutral, which most small generators have. Ground neutral plugs are available for your generator but I have not tried that yet.

Nice test. Imagine how long you could run your furnace using the Delta Max or Delta 2 Max.

Im in the process of sizing one of these units out. Best thing you can do it get a cheap power meter from harbor freight and track it. On a 10 degree day I ran my boiler with 2 pumps and it only used 1.95kwh for a 24hrs

I Installed an outlet / switch just like you did. That was a great idea. Thank you for that though. I have two batteries and one 100 watt panel. I may need to get a generator. Thanks again! Great idea.

For a 1024Wh power station, that Delta 2 sure is very compact.

Im wondering if you’d be willing to share the approximate square footage of your house, as well as the efficiency of your furnace. The reason as I ask is I’d like to make a comparison with my home to get an idea on how an Ecoflow unit that size would work for me.

Thanks for the video. Pig tailing a gas furnace to run off another electric power source is a smart thing to do. You showed the ECO Flow displaying a draw of 452 watts in one scene which is about average for a gas furnace. You can assume a starting draw of 1K Watts for a few seconds. His 2K watt-hour ECO Flow can power his furnace for about 4 hours continuously. Furnaces DO NOT run continuously to maintain heat. The amount of time they run depends on your house and the outside temps. In my house, a 2K Watt-Hour ECO Flow would last for about 10 hours in 30 degree weather with the gas furnace set at 72 degrees. Most modern furnaces need pure sine wave and/or a grounded connection. Many of these electric generators have pure sine-wave but not a grounded connection. Even when you see the third prong, you are likely seeing a dummy port with nothing connected to it!!! You can buy or make solutions to bond neutral to ground for less than $20. Buy a 1K Inventer and hooking it to some cars may increase the risk of damage to its computer systems. Please plan accordingly with your particular vehicle. I have ran a setup like this for 6 hours using an older BMW with an inline 6. This is now a tertiary solution. An inverter gas generator can be the way to go for some. As long as you got gas, you have capacity. Running the generator overnight means noise nuisance, exhaust safety, and the chances of theft. We run our inverter gas generator in the day and our battery generator at night during power events.

Always great thanks you 😊

Another option is to keep a 1000 watt (or larger) inverter handy. In the case of power failure, just connect it to your car/truck battery. In the event of a power failure, you should be able to run it with your vehicle idling, all day or night. Just be sure to keep your vehicle topped off! And of course make sure your car is outside when idling, because you know - carbon monoxide. The price of an inverter is a fraction of a generator or large battery solution such as this.

Thank you, this is exactly what I needed to know

One thing to remember is that simply running the inverter draws power. Perhaps as much as 25W. This becomes the primary constraint when powering low loads.

Great video. @8:09 the batteries are not actually at 0% which means no charge left otherwise the display will not be on, they actually drain the battery down to about 5% SOC (State of Charge) to have some buffer.

What I like best about that Delta 2 is that I can still use my Delta Max extra battery to it and increase the capacity.

If it's an emergency, then there's no need to heat or cool the entire house. Just one room is enough. In the winter, couple of space heaters, one for the room, and one to put near any sinks that back to outside, to keep the pipes from freezing. And the summer, just one small portable AC or fan. That's all you need to heat or cool just one room. Then with the power station and the solar panels you will never be out of power, or at least it will last you days, not hours.

I tested my ALLPOWERS S700 V2.0 606WHr last night running my 2018 fossil gas furnace last night -5 Celsius with wind-chill -12 degrees. It ran for 4 hours AC mode but then AC mode turned itself off with aprox 58% remaining at 4 hours! That's disappointing considering that I'd hope to sleep through an over night (6 hrs expectation) power outage. I turned AC back on but within 40 minutes it ran down to 18% I had the charger plugged in for the entire test run. As it's not a quick charge capable battery chemistry (not a LiFePO4), am not surprised that there was not much power use mitigation. I'm glad I have an EcoFlow River 2 Pro 786WHr to rely on.

Great video & information 😊

Shows the limitations of back up battery generators. When you're most likely to need it [ bad weather ], it won't get sufficient daylight to be fed from solar panels.

Spoke too soon. I found the other video. Cool!

Thanx for the information and the video! Are the battery generators really appropriate for larger loads with motors and compressors? Yes the battery generators will work but current in rush on startup is very taxing and surely will foreshorten the lifespan of the battery generator if not damage it at some point? Has there been any testing in how many cycles (of inductive) loads are practical (or even really appropriate)? Battery generators are not cheap, expensive and time consuming to repair if it can be repaired (type of damage, parts, supply chains), and can be a fire hazard if safety measures fail. I’m not knocking the tech … I own 4 battery gens that run computers, lights, televisions… but I’m Leary of furnace and refrigerators…. Love my Honda 2000i gas gen that I use to recharge everything

Very insightful video, interesting product idea.... but I had hoped it would power a furnace or boiler for days, not hours since the heating source is oil or gas. I really need something that will power HVAC for several days in case of an outage from an ice or heavy snow storm up here in the New England. I guess a NG generator is still really the best option, unless there are other options ?

I didn't see you deal with the bonded ground issue in this video. I wondered the Ecoflow doesn't have that problem?

Not sure if it’s mentioned or not but I suspect a dc variable speed motor will not draw as much as an ac powered fan motor as far as how long you can go..

What wire type, size and connectors do you need to make extension cords between power station and solar panel connectors? I’d like to make up a 50 foot set. Do you know if they have a through the wall adapter for the solar connectors?

Hi, I converted my furnace so it's plugged in instead of directly wired and tried it with my EcoFlow River Pro, it can only run the blower but not the igniter. RiverPro is 720W with xboost up to 1440. Wondering if it's my furnace or I just need a higher capacity Ecoflow.

I like the whole go green idea but I will stick to my gas/propane generator. When Hurricane Sandy clobbered us we were without power for about 8 days. Have purchased a 5000w generator and transfer switch about for years earlier I was well prepared. I was able to run my burner, 2 refrigerators and most of the essential lighting. The dual fuel was a huge plus as most of the gas stations were without power and the ones that had it were having trouble getting refilled. The propane was readily available. My home a well insulated and I ran the generator from 8am until 10pm just to be neighborly 😃. The temperatures were in the 40’s so the house stayed warm enough on the overnight. This might have been a problem if it was in the 20’s. It was fun to have nearby family calling to stop by for a hot shower 🤪. My wife thought I was crazy when I bought the generator but I’ve long live by the saying “It’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it!

I've got the delta max 2, so in theory, even if there is no sun, I can run my gas generator for an hour or two (to charge the ecoflow) and have 24 hours of the furnace running.

It never says how much power your furnace pulled when running??

Why would you not keep the Ecoflow near your furnace?

Ralph is a good doggo! Please send him scritches from me.

The price is stupid ridiculous. For such a tiny wattage

I don't understand. Why can't it sit next to the furnace if that is what you are using it for? You said not to do it, but didn't explain the reason.

EcoFlow portable power station adapter for bonded plug issue and EV charging from the EcoFlow generator/ batteries. $49.00 at their store

The better question would be how much solar would you need to recharge it daily for an extended period of time in the winter.

I seen on the specs that it runs on 50 herts instead of 60 herts. Check it out.

What exact unit is that? Thank you.

Why not a manual transfer switch and power a few 15amp breakers?

Could you buy three and use one to charge one (with a battery charger) leaving one in service? So, can a car battery charger with AC power from another unit charge the third unit?

How many watts does it take to run your furnace? I have a Trane and it draws close to 600 watts when running.

What was the draw of the unit when running? You didn’t show that. Mine drew 600 wats

Would this run a circuits with a generator switch I want to lower my electric bill and charge it with solar in day?

Be sure you have smoke and carbon monoxide alarms that work in such situation also

Gas Generator?

What gauge plug cord do we use for running a furnace to go to the Generator I'd run it from a Extension cord to the Generator thanks

Never mind the extra battery. it is essentially useless without this primary unit. Best bet is to purchase another primary unit to hook up to the first one.

So, it lasts about 10 hours when the temperature is set st 64F, right?

You didn't answer your own question "How Long Will The EcoFlow Power Station Run My Furnace". You said it "supplied power" to the Furnace for 10 hours, but you didn't document how many "run hours" your furnace ran while on the EcoFlow. The question that you are asking "How Long Will The EcoFlow Power Station Run My Furnace" needs to measured in actual Run Time, not including Standby time. This EcoFlow wont help anyone if they come home to no power, hook up this power supply when the house is 55 degrees inside only to find out it shuts off at 63 degrees because it ran out of battery as the Furnace ran for say 1 hour straight. Also, lets face it your not going to lose power when its sunny outside and the wind is not blowing. What are your test parameters? How many Watts does your Furnace draw? Motor start up and Normal running? How many Watt Hours does your EcoFlow supply? Example: Your Furnace draws 500 watts, EcoFlow supplies 900 watt hours, you should get around 1.5 hours of constant run time. Then add in Solar charge amount per hour.

I'd use this and use a 2000 watt generator to charge as needed quiet over night and use less gas

My furnace won't run with the open ground provided by the Ecoflow Delta 2. I have a ground bonding plug but is it safe to use?

I wish you showed how much power the furnace was drawing when it was running

The ecoflow has an almost identical display as the Oupes

I wonder how long it would last without the solar panel charging it?

Why do you caution us not to place this ecoflow unit near the furnace? How far away should it be?

My Bluetti eb55 won't run because of no ground or improper neutral. My Ego inverter runs it fine. Don't know if it's just a Bluetti thing.

I sell generators for a living and the power packs that you recharge are only good for a few hours and then takes hour or so to charge stick to a gas or propane generator

I was shocked when I learned that this 1024Wh power station only needed 80 minutes to get a full charge.

If I wanted to hire an electrician to install one of those "switches/outlets" on my gas furnace what is the official or technical term I would use? There is already a box with a switch installed on my system. Would that void my warranty?

I have a Ecoflow Delta II. I installed the EZ Generator switch after watching your video. I just installed it this morning. The furnace works just fine on normal mode drawing power from the grid. However, when I plug in my Delta II, the furnace fan kicks on then kicks off very shortly . I have a Goodman furnace installed in 2012 (don't know BTU) for a 1400 sq ft house. What am I doing wrong. I have the Delta II set on X-Boost.

I just got a Delta 2. My furnace is hard wired to the panel. Did you install the AC power plug yourself?

My furnace run on breaker 14&15 20 amp double pole however they use 12/2 wire so I know they are not 208/220. I was just going to cut the romex and install a male and female plug. Yes I know it's not braided cable and not meant for that but hey it's only going to get used in a extended power out situation so I don't really care. My question is my thermostat also runs of breaker 14/15 but where does the thermostat get it's power? Does the thermostat get power from the furnaces in other words if I can provide generator power to my furnaces via your method will my thermostat be on to call for heat?

Is the Delta 2 Max floating or bonded neutral? Nope, I don’t know much other than winter outages aren’t fun. Looking to do this or the ezgenerator product…when the time comes.

My battery starts the inverter motor but then does not start the burner. Then the blower comes on with no heat?

Would it be wise to install a soft start on the hvac in this scenario?

Nice option for a power outage! But man, 65 F is not toasty! I keep my house at 73-75 F ! But I like to wear T-Shorts and Shorts in house.

You’re 120 outlets are not grounded, they just put the third prong in there so that your plugs will fit!

Dear HVAC Guy, I have tried exactly like your setup. I have EcoFlow Power Station Delta2. When I plug the pigtail into EcoFlow the furnace controller board LED is blinking it's not power up the furnace, I unplug the pigtail then plug it back into combo switch receptacle the furnace power back normal. I do not know why. Can you explain more detail please. Thank you.

Didn't the vtoman go 14 hours?

Help! I hooked up my EF Delta II to my furnace just like you did. It wouldn't run it. It had a full charge. So I plugged in the AC power and it did run it until I cut off the AC power. Then the burner went out but the fan kept going. What do you think is wrong?

Your configuration is different from what I would consider a UPS hookup. A normal computer UPS configuration has the UPS plugged into a power source (wall outlet) then the computer plugged into the UPS. Under normal conditions, the computer runs on home power and the UPS is just the connection to that power. Power goes out and the UPS very quickly switches power to the battery backup feeding the outlet on the UPS the computer is plugged into. Why isn't the furnace wired the same way...UPS plugged into wall outlet, furnace plugged to UPS all the time. Furnace is running on normal home power all the time until there is an outage. No special wiring on the furnace, no need for manual intervention when power goes out - it automatically fails over. This setup would make it easy to connect the UPS to an inverter from your vehicle for extended outages, just plug UPS into an extension cord from the inverter. Only potential problem I see would be that a non-hardwired furnace connection is against code. But what would a solution be to a problem where your power company can not deliver clean power to your home. Most home appliances would not be that fussy but most new gas furnaces require clean, pure sine wave power to operate correctly.

I believe these power units, some of them anyway run on Lipo Lithium polymer batteries. As a RC pilot a great deal of the hobby has gone electric using LiPo batteries. An important maintenance issue with these batteries is the fact they must be put into storage mode after use so you don't charge them after the use period. A single cell at full charge is 4.2 volts. Its normal storage voltage is 3.8 volts. If they are left in the fully charged voltage for extended periods of time the cell will degrade and become dangerous and could catch fire. So the very nature of a back up battery pack using LiPo batteries is not a sound strategy. You require it to be at full charge for it to be functional but you can't keep it at full charge for safety and utility reasons.

So many of these reviews are from people that got the products from the company, We can only hope that you're reviews are real and from real world scenarios. I'm confident they work in some use cases, but i just can't take reviews from people that got them free, for real.

a 10 min video and not a single shot from it actually running the furnace.. how many watts did it draw when its running. and your solar only gave 16 watts peak?

Question to all ... is this Ecoflow good for "clean power"? I have a newer Rheems furnace and I read once if you don't have good power or a really top end generator that it can burn out the electronic panel. Any thoughts anyone???? (Thanks!)

Electric blanket. I use a low wattage electric blanket with my battery. Hope this helps someone.

The fact that you can run your furnace in pure winter 🥶 and no one can hear it is good 👍 for me…Zombies

Wow. $1650 for only 10 hours use. Can buy a portable propane powered generator and install a transfer switch to power my whole home for a lot less than just this power station. And it will run continuously for as long as I have propane (500 gal. Tank).

If you want to decrease the popper drag caused by the extension, try and get the heavy duty high current variety… these actually have the least resistance because the actual wires are larger thus less loss.

I’m wondering is my AC also connected to the same line as furnace? Will this power AC, if so how long. Again,what’s your home square footage. Great job,your VERY clear and detailed. I’m hooked 👍🏼

Why can't you have the unit by the furnace when charging?

So I own the same delta 2 and looking at the expansion battery but the price is just a little less than the delta 2. So I would rather buy another delta 2 and plug it into the other delta 2 and use it as an expansion battery. My question is... Would this work?