Ice Cold Basement

Berner said:

How do you guys keep your basement warm?

I've got my PH setup on the first floor of a 2 story Bungalow house. Things are great on the living floors. The gas furnace never kicks on unless it is extremely cold on an overnight load. However with the furnace never running the basement is extremely cold. Not that it provided much warmth but the furnace and the hot water heater kept it manageable.

There was a frozen copper pipe that was a part of my forced hot water system down there last night. I'm very glad that it didn't burst and thanks to the wife's hair dryer we are out of trouble.

Any suggestions would be more than welcome.

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Insulation on pipes, insulate any obvious cold air spots around the basement, let the furnace run a couple times a day during the worst of the weather this week that's coming your way (insulation on pipes'll help keep that gas-heated water warmer longer). My well-insulated basement is cold too, and acting as a root cellar, but low temp down there is still above 50 even with a cat door yawning open part of the day till I close it off at night. Running your equipment to get the water to circulate during the worst of the winter cold'll be cheaper than busted plumbing and cleanup.

Ours has never been below 50F.

We have a electric water heater, a large chest freezer, and a dorm fridge down there, plus the filter half of our reef aquarium, and it's nearly all under ground except right by the walkout. My guess is that stuff down there running, plus the moderate soil temperatures keep it warm in the winter, cool in the summer. As of yet, ours is still uninsulated.

Berner, it seems very unusual for a basement to get below freezing. Are you saying this space is below grade? Below frost line? If it is and you are experiencing freezing temps down there you definately have serious air leaks. If it were me I would move the thermostat downstairs where it will call for heat, then play with the temp setting until you get it where you want it. Of course it will run and run and run trying to get the basement up to temp while the rest of the house swelters. This may be helped by partially or totally closing upstairs vents. Be judicious about this however. Forced air? It may just take some playing with and the number your used to seeing on the thermostat probably wont be the same number your used to in order to keep the rest of the house warm but not blazing while warming the basement. That way you can continue to use your upstairs heat source as you wish and when your basement gets below x the furnace will know it now and kick on. Lastly track down those leaks and insulate. Hope you stay warm and don't have to cut and solder pipes.

it sure sounds like air is getting in. I also had to go around the whole basement and caulk all of the sill plates and insulate them. Well, I insulated the whole house myself and did all of the sealing. And a good vapor barrier too.
I had the foresight to have the mason use ICF's to build the basement walls and they pour cement into them. 6" of foam on both side of the walls helps much up here.

Our ranch house basement is 3/4 completely below ground (walkout on one end). Our coldest spot was always by a north facing window out of the ground about 16 inches. A water pipe ran right past there. Our first couple year fix was to cut/fit Styrofoam in those lousy single pane basement windows. The area average was about 50 degrees on cold north wind days/nights. The final fix: contractor spray foamed 2 inches of closed cell on all walls, replaced the three lousy windows and a leaky walkout door. The basement is very comfortable now and an electric heater will bring it right up if we want to be down there. Summer time is much better too (no musty smell) because the cool walls can't attract moisture like a cold pop can does. One other important (low cost) tip: We bought a new style dryer exit vent. It has a protected cap outside that slides up like a piston when the dryer operates. It never clogs and closes tight when not in use. No cold drafts down there anymore.

NextEndeavor said:

Our ranch house basement is 3/4 completely below ground (walkout on one end). Our coldest spot was always by a north facing window out of the ground about 16 inches. A water pipe ran right past there. Our first couple year fix was to cut/fit Styrofoam in those lousy single pane basement windows. The area average was about 50 degrees on cold north wind days/nights. The final fix: contractor spray foamed 2 inches of closed cell on all walls, replaced the three lousy windows and a leaky walkout door. The basement is very comfortable now and an electric heater will bring it right up if we want to be down there. Summer time is much better too (no musty smell) because the cool walls can't attract moisture like a cold pop can does. One other important (low cost) tip: We bought a new style dryer exit vent. It has a protected cap outside that slides up like a piston when the dryer operates. It never clogs and closes tight when not in use. No cold drafts down there anymore.

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You did all the right stuff. Get it sealed up good and it should be good. It gets so cold up here that I put a PVC 2" ball valve on my induced water heater vent and run the water heater one a day in the coldest months. Tonight it is going down to -38 and when it's like that the cold air would come down on the water heater big time!

Dakotas Dad said:

Ours has never been below 50F.

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X2, Mine is usually 50-54 most of the time.

Similar issue here, but now the wife wants to use the finished family room, so I had to find a way to heat the space while we burn. Recently I installed one of these on the far wall - coldest section of the basement. Our family room is insulated so it does not take much heat....I can leave this unit on 1 (lowest setting) and it easily keeps the basement warm without running much.

http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Heater-Natural-Blue-Flame/dp/B000UPR5TO/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Berner said:

However with the furnace never running the basement is extremely cold.

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I burn 24/7 and heat 100% with wood. My ancient oil burner, which never runs, feeds into a clay liner. The house is old and leaky. Rather than act as a chimney, the unused chimney reverse-drafts and acts as a conduit for cold air to enter the basement, through the barometric damper opening... which I now have sealed off. (I would seal the chimney at the top, too, if "never" really meant never, but I want to keep the backup option open, as well as run the burner on occasion to be sure its alive.)

Not sure how normal it is for cold unused flues to reverse-draft into a basement, but the cold air was really pouring in through mine, like an open door.

thats one thing i love about my wood furnace, basement always stays 80+ just from the heat it radiates down there.

Another vote to look for air leaks. 200 year old house here with unheated, uninsulated rubble stone basemet and ive also never seen it below 50... Maybe 48 at the worst... Since i did a good air sealing.

For the pipes:

http://t.homedepot.com/p/Frost-King-30-ft-Automatic-Electric-Heat-Cable-Kit-HC30/100196471

Just turn your furnace fan on but leave the heat off.

We've got -12 degrees right now and my basement is probably 60 degrees.

I have 3 single pane windows in my basement. Until I get the time and money to get better windows I use 1" foam board with duct tape around the edges. With that and proper air sealing you should be able to maintain a reasonable temp down there (60).

Berner said:

I didn't even know this was an option. How would you go about doing that?

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On our thermostat, you set the system to off, instead of heat or cool, and then set the fan control to on. You can also, and this what I do, set the thermostat to a low temp, say 60, then "hold" then fan to on..

I've run my furnace a bit over he past couple days for peace of mind. Most of the time in "normal" winter temps I have no worries. I have a couple cheap therms down there and monitor it. I also have a few 1/2 full water bottles placed around the foundation wall as a temp indicator. If they are sealed give them a shake now and then - a sealed bottle can get bellow freezing w/o freezing but any simple disturbance will freeze them solid in a couple seconds - it's kind of cool to see.

How quick is your heat loss in the basement? If you run the furnace up to temp how soon after it shuts dowm will the temp drop to an unacceptable level? If I never ran my furnace my basement would level off at 50 degrees or so. I ususally run the furnace in the morning while getting the 1st load going and I can maintain low 60s down there for the better part of the day. You can try to run just the furnace fan and see how it works for you but most here (me included) have not had any luck. I certainly can raise the basement temps but it is at the expense of lowering the upstairs temps substantially. I think you'd be amazed a what a can of foam and some foam board can do. Basements usually have negative pressure so any minute air leaks will suck air at a pretty good rate. So much so that it makes that walls seem as though air is just rushing through them. Get all the air leaks fixed and and I bet most of your problem will be solved.

If you hardly ever run your furnace can you just hook the circulation pump for the hot water baseboard up to a timer so it moves things around every so often? Should be really cheap to do, and doesn't require the furnace to run.