Is dealer right that a pellet stove in my 2000 ft basement will not help me heat the house?

If the house has baseboard heat you may consider a pellet boiler...Lots of people use them...They're a bit pricier

He is correct!

Do not install a pellet stove in the basement to try to heat another living area. Install it upstairs or go with a central heater (much more money, many more pellets!)

Wow, your basement is bigger than my whole house (minus the 864 sq. ft. basement)

you will have a warm basement but very little heat will get upstairs . I have a split level and put it downstairs on the slab this big family room is nice and warm
but go up 3 steps to kit/din/liv room and its 10 degrees colder. I have tried fans to even out temp but have had limited success.Put the stove where you spend most of your time.

I disagree, installing in your basement can work, but it works best if you have forced air to help circulate the air: A friend of mine installed his pellet stove in his basement (a 1700 sq ft house, basement and upper level both are 1700 sq ft). By leaving your stairwell open you will get natural heat rise to your upper level and also your floors will be warm from the heat rising, and having warm floors makes a huge difference in how warm your house feels. If you have a forced air furnace it will help to cut vents into your cold air returns in the basement and run your furnace fan on low to help circulate the heat. Your basement may have to be anywhere from 4 to 10 degrees warmer than upstairs but now you have two heated levels instead of one. So you use extra pellets, but you also get extra space heated. My friend 2 winters ago spent $2800 on propane, for last winter he got his pellet stove installed, he burned about $1200 of pellets, and propane had went up about 30 cents from the winter before. This year propane went up about 55 cents more, and his pellets cost pretty much the same (he bought them this past spring). So after this winter his stove will be paid for and then some. Also he keeps his house warmer with the pellets than he used to with his propane, and when he had his propane he didn't heat his basement. Anyway I just wanted to point out that installing a pellet stove in your basement can work.

Not sure of any pellet stove that would heat 4000 sq ft (basement & first floor). That's asking an awful lot. Your dealer did you a favor.

However, I agree with the previous poster. Heating a basement can work under certain conditions. That is precisly what I am going to be doing and my situation almost exactly mirrors that of the previous poster's friends setup. I did it for years with cord wood so I see no difference now with pellets. BTU is BTU.

Sorry webmaster but I totally disagree with your statement not to install a pellet stove in a basement to heat another space. It will work under certain conditions.

I have had good results using an airtight stove (wood and coal) in an unfinished basement. I have a two story above, at about 1,000 sf for all three levels. But, I use my unfinished basement for an office and workshop and so the heat in the basement is of value in itself in my case.

Still, it was clear to me that when I had a fire going in my insert on the first floor, it did a good job of heating the first floor, much better than the stove in the basement. No surprise here, the insert wasn't heating the unfinished basement.

I keep asking myself, why is it you can have a woodstove in the basement and heat a house no problem? But for some reason folks (and admin) swear a pellet stove won't do it? I've seen wood stoves by the hundreds in Maine, and thousands of monitor & rennai heaters have been installed in place of the electric heat many condos & homes built in the 80's had? The units (monitor or Rennai are installed in the downstairs of homes, or townhouses & heat a whole unit (2 floors)... with no problem? I asked a similiar question Kennebec recently and got the same mixed reviews. Some SWEAR you can't do it.... and others from life experience say you can. I'm about to plunk down $2,000 just to either prove I'm right or they are wrong! LOL

Please don't misunderstand my post about the wood/coal airtight in the basement. It did not heat the whole house, it helped and it really heated the open unfinished basement. Still, it lost a lot of heat through the concrete block walls and cement floor, and yes, through the ceiling which does not have insulation. The good news is that heat went upstairs. I also left the door to the basement open a "crack" to let some heat escape up that way.

I also had my central heating system on unless I also had a fire in the insert on the main floor.

I think Kennebec's issue is more square foot related than pellet stove. That's an awful lot of real estate he's looking to heat there from a pellet stove.

MrJitters said:

I think Kennebec's issue is more square foot related than pellet stove. That's an awful lot of real estate he's looking to heat there from a pellet stove.

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Ah, I see your point... that is a huge space indeed.

Kennebec said:

Hey, this is more encouraging. The first floor has two heating zones one of which is a double parlor. If I install the stove out the wall under the parlor maybe that would work for at least that zone? Just wishful thinking?

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Sure and cutting in a grille or two to help the air move up wouldn't hurt either.

There is a difference in pellet stove heat vs wood stove heat. That difference is radiation. Wood stoves heat by radiating the heat to all the surroundings, whereas a pellet stove heats by convection (blowing). radiation is a much more effective way to heat. It is slower, but once the house is up to temp, the whole house will give off the heat.

That said, my parents have heated thier central Massachusetts 1000 sf ranch for 30 years using a wood stove in thier basement. It is a typical 1960's closed floorplan 3 bedroom ranch. There is only 1" of fiberglass insulation in the walls, and 3-1/2" in the attic. Does have new insulated windows from 7 years ago. The wood stove is in the finished portion of the basement (300 sf), and heat goes up the stairs thru the open door to heat the home to the low 70's even in the coldest of weather. This is all accomplished on 2 cords of firewood.

I doubt they could swap in a pellet stove and accomplish the same heat performance with the eqivilant amount of pellets (1.25 tons), but I would wager my house that it could be done easily with 2-2.5 tons or so.

I just installed a pellet stove last week with the same hope in mind. It's in an unfinished basement and it is supposed to heat 2300 sq ft. My house (ranch) and basement is 1000 sq ft each. I plan to install registers in the floor of each room. Does anyone think this will work? By the way should I remove the insulation from the ceiling of the basement. Will this help the heat get to the living are or is it better to leave insulaton there?

I believe it will work. That is why I am doing it. You need to make provisions to allow the heat to rise to the main level. This would involve cutting in registers and yes, removing the insulation. One of the big advantages of having the heater in the basement is the warm floors it will provide. I don't see your floors getting all that warm with the insulation in place.

It will not work. My dealer told me the opposite of what yours told you. I did the basement install per the pre buy on site inspection by the dealers installer. He told me to put in the basement and it will rise and heat the entire house. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The basement was around 75 degrees with the stove on the highest setting burning 4 bags a day and I swear on my sons life that when you walked up the stairs from the basement you could actually feel the cold air hit you in the face about halfway up the stairs. We took the basement door off it's hinges,cut 2 vents in every room and took out the drop ceiling in the basement.The warmest we got the first floor that years was around 64,we ran out of pellets by Christmas,could'nt get any more anywhere on the East Coast and had to reinstall the propane.

DON'T DO IT!

I don't see how this is even possible. Cranking 160 lbs of pellets per day should generate so much heat even in a drafty basement that it would make it WAY hotter than 75. There must have been something wrong with the stove. I read your other post too, so I saw that you have a ranch. Ranch homes were pretty much invented in the 50s, while most built in the 60s. So I would conclude your basement is fairly tight. With the mods you mad, like the door removal, and the vents cut in the floor, you should have helped considerably to heat the upper floor. The more I think about it, this story seems awful fishy. Maybe this is from an irrate oil or propane seller? Look at the poster's name too. Way to many BTUs being created with too little too show.

pelletsrevil said:

It will not work. My dealer told me the opposite of what yours told you. I did the basement install per the pre buy on site inspection by the dealers installer. He told me to put in the basement and it will rise and heat the entire house. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The basement was around 75 degrees with the stove on the highest setting burning 4 bags a day and I swear on my sons life that when you walked up the stairs from the basement you could actually feel the cold air hit you in the face about halfway up the stairs. We took the basement door off it's hinges,cut 2 vents in every room and took out the drop ceiling in the basement.The warmest we got the first floor that years was around 64,we ran out of pellets by Christmas,could'nt get any more anywhere on the East Coast and had to reinstall the propane.

DON'T DO IT!

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pelletsrevil, I now understand your handle, sorry to read you had such a bad/expensive experience.

As I have posted, maybe on this thread, I don't use pellets, but I did have good results using heat in an unfinished basement (coal and wood) in reducing the load on my central heating system. I do understand that a pathway for air could be felt either way, i.e., heat going up, or cold going down. So in the stairway one might feel a cold breeze in the face while low on the stairs and heading into the cold air return, on the other hand they should feel a warm air flow near the top of the door at the top, just guessing.

An unfinished/uninsulated-wall basement will not give high efficiency in terms of delivering BTUs to the house....lots lost through the wall and it is thus only good to heat the basement if you want to use the space and need some warmth and/or you have "free" fuel. Some consider self-provided wood, for example, as "fee" and, gee, they get warm twice: once when they split it and once when they burn it

orangecrushcj7 said:

There is only 1" of fiberglass insulation in the walls, and 3-1/2" in the attic

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:coolgrin: I guess ther really is global warming

Sorry but I'm an irate pellet stove buyer. I am a working man with 2 jobs and I saved a long time for this stove and so far I just can't justify buying pellets anymore. My wife and spent a lot of time before we purchased our stove and we went with friends of ours and they bought a stove and they are having the same results as us. I have the name pelletsrevil because that is what they have been to us. When you drain the bank thinking that you will get paid back and instead you get stabbed in the back you better believe you get irate.Every time I cross the room and look at that thing I get even more irate.The basement is finished,walls isulation, ceiling,it's pretty tight except for the sliding glass door.All I know for sure is that the heat did not in any way rise.

I told you the truth 4 bags a day(we lit it oct 18 and we were out New Years Eve 4 tons) and it was cold in here,it was hot in front of the stove but move back even just 5 feet and you could feel the difference. Maybe St. Croix are bad stoves,I don't know. I do know this,my dealer does not carry them any longer and they won't tell me why.

Well, it sounds like you have a unique situation. For most who has this set up, it is ideal. Sorry for the accusation, but you never know when someone has a hidden agenda. My limited time on here has proven that 99% of the posters on here are genuinely honest, with real world experience. I must admit I am truly astounded by your experience. Good luck in correcting your problem. Let us know what you do to solve it.