Greetings to all --
I am impressed with the knowledge in this forum, and thought I'd ask a bit of advice. This post is long, and so I apologize in advance. I wanted to be as thorough as possible, in order to get the best advice from those more knowledgeable than I.
My wife and I own a circa 1850 farm house in upstate New York, near New Paltz. It has two floors (total of 1200
sq. feet, evenly split between floors), and two chimneys, one of which is connected to an oil boiler rated at 100,000 btu, which uses #2 oil.
There are two 250 gallon oil tanks in the basement. The unused chimney has a coal stove attached to it. We have never used it.
The house currently has baseboard/radiators on both floors. This heats things pretty well, except for the kitchen area which has no baseboard. There are registers in each of the main rooms, theoretically allowing warm air to flow to the upper floor. The current heating system has two zones - upstairs and downstairs. During the day, we turn off the heat upstairs, and close the door to the stairway. It gets pretty chilly upstairs with no heat, but even when we leave the door open, it doesn't get much warmer, although to be fair the registers stay closed. About an hour before we go to bed, we turn on the heat upstairs.
There is at least some fiberglass insulation in the walls and in the attic. Attic is freezing in the winter, and burning in the summer. We have zero problems with ice dams, so I think the insulation in the attic is sufficient (no gutters, but that's another story). Windows are not original, but are old and drafty in some places. I'm sure that the envelope is not tight.
We're trying to reduce our oil dependency, and are considering either a wood stove and/or a wood boiler. As we do not live here full time at the moment, we can not cut the cord completely regarding oil, otherwise pipes would freeze.
Down the road - perhaps 10 or 15 years from now, we might retire to this house. I am almost 53, and in decent shape, but splitting wood is not for me. It seems easy to order dry hardwood in this area, as many folks here burn wood.
I received a quote for a wood stove (Lopi Endeavor), and with all the other requirements, i.e. installation, 20' liner, bluestone pad, pass throughs and blower, the figure is somewhere around $5,200. This does not include the masonry work required to make the chimney usable (both stacks need to be rebuilt from the roof line on up).
My main concern is that a single wood burning stove won't generate enough heat for the upstairs. There are open
doorways to the other rooms on the ground floor. However, the door to the upstairs opens in such a way that it closes off the foyer leading to the room where the stove would be.
Electrical power goes out during heavy winter storms. So a wood stove still gets us warm in this situation.
Radiant heating with a wood boiler would solve many problems, but would be more expensive. It would get heat
under the kitchen area where there is currently no baseboard. And it would get heat to all rooms upstairs. But
would not work in a power down situation. We don't currently own a generator.
I should mention that there is sheetrock on the ceiling on the ground floor. Don't know what else is in there, but probably no insulation.
Floor boards for the ground floor are visible from the basement. There is no insulation.
The basement is sort of a patchwork of existing electrical, plumbing and structural elements. The original log joists were shored up with jack posts before we bought the house, and at least one of the logs has been sistered with new lumber. Not sure how will this would play with tubes running through this area.
One solution would be to get a wood stove now, and if/when retiring, get a wood boiler to replace the oil boiler. But getting rid of oil completely means we have to have good neighbors who will if we want to travel, or drain water from pipes.
All feedback is welcomed.
Thanks and best wishes,
jazzman
I am impressed with the knowledge in this forum, and thought I'd ask a bit of advice. This post is long, and so I apologize in advance. I wanted to be as thorough as possible, in order to get the best advice from those more knowledgeable than I.
My wife and I own a circa 1850 farm house in upstate New York, near New Paltz. It has two floors (total of 1200
sq. feet, evenly split between floors), and two chimneys, one of which is connected to an oil boiler rated at 100,000 btu, which uses #2 oil.
There are two 250 gallon oil tanks in the basement. The unused chimney has a coal stove attached to it. We have never used it.
The house currently has baseboard/radiators on both floors. This heats things pretty well, except for the kitchen area which has no baseboard. There are registers in each of the main rooms, theoretically allowing warm air to flow to the upper floor. The current heating system has two zones - upstairs and downstairs. During the day, we turn off the heat upstairs, and close the door to the stairway. It gets pretty chilly upstairs with no heat, but even when we leave the door open, it doesn't get much warmer, although to be fair the registers stay closed. About an hour before we go to bed, we turn on the heat upstairs.
There is at least some fiberglass insulation in the walls and in the attic. Attic is freezing in the winter, and burning in the summer. We have zero problems with ice dams, so I think the insulation in the attic is sufficient (no gutters, but that's another story). Windows are not original, but are old and drafty in some places. I'm sure that the envelope is not tight.
We're trying to reduce our oil dependency, and are considering either a wood stove and/or a wood boiler. As we do not live here full time at the moment, we can not cut the cord completely regarding oil, otherwise pipes would freeze.
Down the road - perhaps 10 or 15 years from now, we might retire to this house. I am almost 53, and in decent shape, but splitting wood is not for me. It seems easy to order dry hardwood in this area, as many folks here burn wood.
I received a quote for a wood stove (Lopi Endeavor), and with all the other requirements, i.e. installation, 20' liner, bluestone pad, pass throughs and blower, the figure is somewhere around $5,200. This does not include the masonry work required to make the chimney usable (both stacks need to be rebuilt from the roof line on up).
My main concern is that a single wood burning stove won't generate enough heat for the upstairs. There are open
doorways to the other rooms on the ground floor. However, the door to the upstairs opens in such a way that it closes off the foyer leading to the room where the stove would be.
Electrical power goes out during heavy winter storms. So a wood stove still gets us warm in this situation.
Radiant heating with a wood boiler would solve many problems, but would be more expensive. It would get heat
under the kitchen area where there is currently no baseboard. And it would get heat to all rooms upstairs. But
would not work in a power down situation. We don't currently own a generator.
I should mention that there is sheetrock on the ceiling on the ground floor. Don't know what else is in there, but probably no insulation.
Floor boards for the ground floor are visible from the basement. There is no insulation.
The basement is sort of a patchwork of existing electrical, plumbing and structural elements. The original log joists were shored up with jack posts before we bought the house, and at least one of the logs has been sistered with new lumber. Not sure how will this would play with tubes running through this area.
One solution would be to get a wood stove now, and if/when retiring, get a wood boiler to replace the oil boiler. But getting rid of oil completely means we have to have good neighbors who will if we want to travel, or drain water from pipes.
All feedback is welcomed.
Thanks and best wishes,
jazzman