New Home Setup - a Couple Questions

I have a similar set-up to what you are describing, except my house is slightly larger - 1100 ft2 downstairs and 1600 ft2 upstairs. I went with an FPX 44 Elite in the upstairs and a Blaze King Ashford 30 in the basement recreation room. Both chimneys were run in the same chase. I am not sure why you would need to go with an OAK with that much chimney (draft). My stove has slightly less than 30 ft and I have not had any issues with too much draft. It does not have an OAK. My family really likes the FPX in the main living area. The one thing I really like about the FPX is that I could locate the blower remotely (up in the attic) so it is very quiet even on full air. I do not believe the PE has that capability but it is a smaller blower with a variable speed motor which should reduce the noise. I would make sure I had the ability to vary the blower speed. PE has an excellent reputation and I think the FP30 units would do an adequate job for your house.

My only concern with your set-up would be overheating the downstairs with the stoves you are onsidering, assuming it is well insulated for a living area. Unless you have a very open path to the upstairs, it could get very warm in the basement. My Ashford 30 does a good job of keeping my downstairs walk-out basement in the mid 70's, but I only run it on the lowest settings (1.0 - 1.5). I have an open stairwell about 10 feet from the stove with a ceiling fan and it does not move much heat upstairs. My kids do not like me to run it because it gets too warm in their downstairs bedrooms. I went with the Ashford 30 because of the controllable low heat output. The downside is that the cat stoves are much more expensive.

There are a few common problems with a basement install, and it sounds like the stove shop may have mentioned them to you. There can be other issues but here are a few. 1)Layout of basement is such that natural convection does not allow enough quantity of airflow to adequately transfer heat to the upstairs---result overheated basement. 2) Same as # 1, but the main floors of the house also do not recieve the heat they need---result main floor of house is cool. 3) Basement is either not insulated or under insulated(specifically in relation to foundation walls) so all of the stoves energy is going towards heating the earth and the basement does not stay warm enough to heat the remainder of the house.

Running your HVAC blower/fan will theoretically work. Heres the deal with that. For some people it works great, others not so much. In order for it to work all of your duct work needs to be sealed and insulated, and the ductwork should all be run in conditioned space(i.e. not run in a uninsulated crawlspace etc). A large portion of the time running the hvac blower to distribute the heat from the wood stove suffers so much heat loss that it does not end up being a feasible solution. For me, it works great in milder weather, but in real cold i actual cool my house a significant amount trying to do this due to the heat loss in my duct work. Running my propane furnace doesnt matter because that air is like 150-180F coming out of the vent, so a 15-20F loss is negligible because the house will still get heated. but when your only sending best case 80F air through it, and your getting a 15F loss, well thats 65F. More often your sending like 70-75F air and you end up with air out of the vents around 55-65.

I think they would be a big difference in feeling the heat from your insert to a NC-30, when I had the Princess the family room would get warm but not unbearable, with the PH I can get the fam room so hot you can't stand it, not a problem if you can push the heat to another part of the house but the NC 30 will throw some major heat.

Mike M. said:

Thanks for your ideas Isaiah. I will take a closer look at the FPX models. One of my local stove shops also warned me about too hot of a basement. I guess it is just hard for me to see because I have an insert in my basement now and even running it hard the basement will not ever reach over 75 degrees. The heat just heads upstairs too fast. Another question - do you run your central heating furnace blower to distribute heat? Possibly on a low setting?

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I have a propane fired radiant floor primary heating system rather than a forced air system so I do not have the option of running any furnace blowers. I have often questioned whether I would have been better off saving the $10K premium I spent on this system given how little I use it, but I like the zone heating options and not having all the clutter of duct work or baseboard units.

I have not really tried to heat the house with just the stove for any significant length of time. The one time I recall letting the fireplace die out with the stove running, I had about 76 F downstairs and 66 F upstairs. My basement was insulated for use as a living area including under the slab as well as the walls. I am assuming your new home would be similar even though you plan on finishing it later, but maybe not your old basement. I can believe an insert might struggle to keep the basement at 75 F if it was not well insulated. Are you sure the heat was going upstairs? I would at least carefully consider where you are locating the stove and how you expect the heat to get upstairs. It does not happen easily or unintentionally.

Having stated the benefits of the FPX units, I feel obligated to also advise you of some of the negatives. My experience, and most reviews I have read, agree that they use a lot of wood for 24/7 heating. I went through about 5 cords last year and it appears to be similar this year. Trying to turn the air down to minimum results in blackened doors. This may not be an issue for you if you only use it for evening time ambiance, but I think you may end up using it more than you think if you cannot get heat up from the basement. The smaller 3 cubic foot fireplaces would probably use less wood and might be more appropriate for your size of home. Travis also did not recommend the outside air intake (Posi-Pressure) in very cold climates when I installed mine, but the dealer did put the blower in my attic which worked out very well. I am pretty sure Green Bay would be in that category. I would check this out before committing to an FPX. I think the blower would be excessively loud if it were located right next to the fireplace on full speed. The FPX units are also catalytic which you may or may not consider a negative. You do not get the benefit of a low output, long burn time from the catalyst like a catalytic stove.

I would add that in general I think you have a pretty solid overall plan for heating your home with a lot of options. Planning a dream home is fun. Enjoy it.