All electric but adding a wood furnce in basement, need help.

Ok, I have a home that is all electric. by all electric I mean that my heaters are all forced air heaters (Cadet). I have no furnace of any kind. In our basement (which we are finishing), there is a 6 inch pipe opening in the chimney where the old gas furnace used to vent. We have a fireplace on the main floor that also ties into this chimney. I checked the chimney with smoke pellets from the basement and it gets good draw from down there. I am considering installing a large (big enough to heat 2500 sq ft.) wood burning furnace in the basement and attaching it to that chimney vent. All my old duct work was removed due to its size, so I need to re-install new duct work. My questions are as follows: Since I have low ceilings and want to put in drop in ceilings, can I make (or have made) thinner more streamline duct work to use in the basement? Also, since I do not have an existing furnace, do I still need to have the return registers on the main floor to use with the wood furnace (one of the returns is in the middle of a patio door and I'd really like to eliminate it if possible)? I am basically just wanting to heat the basement and then supplement the electric heaters on the main floor by blowing heat up through the ducts. I still have all my floor registers upstairs. Any other things I am missing, problems, etc...? Thanks in advance for the help.

M1sterM said:

You have a wood fireplace on the main floor that already uses the chimney? Then adding the forced air furnace in the basement is probably a no-go, unless you add a new chimney, too (or abandon/remove the upstairs fireplace).

Is the upstairs "fireplace" a true open fireplace, or a woodstove?

Regarding the ducting, if you get the chimney situation figured out-- forced air wood furnaces have pretty strict limitations on clearances to combustibles for a certain number of feet after the furnaces, as long as you follow those, you should be able to run ducting however you want.

I use to have an Ennglander Add-on, that was in a utility room on the first floor, and I only ran two ducts/registers. It worked quite well at heating the house, and you sound like you have even more options for registers and ducting since you're coming from below.

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OK. Upstairs is a true open fireplace. We currently do not use it(we have an electric insert in it). I believe that there are 2 separate pipes, however, that eventually converge into one, or they may stay separate. One for the basement and one for the main floor. There are two separate ash pits in the basement. One is for the main floor and one is for the basement. The house was built in 1940 and used to have an old coal furnace, so at one time they ran both an old coal furnace and had a fire going in the fireplace. Does that help?

There are 2 pipes with on big cap with wire mesh around it.

M1sterM said:

OK. Sounding better. Even if they share one flue (the fireplace and the thimble in the basement), if you're using the fireplace as a parking spot for your electric "fireplace" insert, you should be good to go. That fireplace should be permanently closed off (insert a block of plate and insulation). This is to keep anyone from using it as a real fireplace down the road, but also to make sure you're not losing heat from the house.

But if they're separate (all the way up to the top of the chimney, despite sharing a cap/bird screen), you're good to go, and also sounds like a potentially good setup for a real woodstove/insert upstairs, once you really get the burning bug.

So, you should get the chimney inspected before moving forward with a furnace. You should very, very strongly consider a liner, for a lot of reasons.

Lots of great options for furnaces. Look at their manuals (available online), to research duct clearances.

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I think the chimney may already have a liner. I know that when i look in the hole in the basement which goes into the chimney, if i look down (towards where the ash pit is) I can see the brick, but if I look up I see metal on all sides. If I do in fact go with a wood burning furnace attached to my duct work and chimney, do I still need returns or can I eliminate them? I know that they pull cold air down to heat, but in my application, since it isn't my primary heating source, and I don't use a standard furnace, just how important are they?

M1sterM said:

Good question. All I can say is, my Englander didn't really have an option for a cold air return, and I made it work just fine without any. In your situation, you can probably get away without any also, but depending on the furnace you pick, you may decide to add some down the road. What you do need to pay attention to, is where the replacement air is coming from, if you are going to install supply ducts to upper levels. You might be able to get away with just leaving a basement door open (or putting in a grill in the door).

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I have useable returns in the bedrooms and living room, no return in the kitchen but the basement door is off the kitchen so it could remain open, and 11 return in the dining room, which I have to remove due to its location (in front of patio doors) the kitchen, living room and dining room are all open to each other so I think I'd be ok with removing the one return in the dining room. Last question, I think, lol. I live in Indiana (central), so we do get colder weather, but not to many blistering cold days. maybe a handful of sub zero temps in a real cold winter. Can you give me any idea on the amount of wood (in cords) I would need burning say 4 months, 2 heavily, 2 50%? I'm just trying to get a rough idea