Basement Very Cold

I run the furnace fan, have a fan blowing down the laundry shoot as well, Keeps my exposed basement at 55 degrees when it is 0 out. You probably are saving quite a bit, run the furnace for a cycle or two every day. That way you do not need to worry. And if you can...insulate sill plates etc...

I was in that situation last year, and did run the furnace a couple nights it got down to -30 F or lower. The furnace is gone now, and its cold down there, so I've got my fingers crossed. I have to seal and insulate the basement this summer.

Keep an eye on the temps down there, and fire up the furnace if needed. Running the furnace is cheaper than frozen pipes.

Keep an eye on the temps down there, and fire up the furnace if needed. Running the furnace is cheaper than frozen pipes.[/quote]

That is a fact! Worst case buy a small heater and set it to come on at say 50-55? I have an exposed basement and the well tank, softner, etc are on one end in a room by themselves. Luckily it is the wall under ground so I leave the 100 watt bulb on when it gets 0 or lower just to be safe.

You may find that even an electric baseboard heater will be cheaper than running the furnace, 'cause it will only heat the space it's in vice the whole house.

I have a two storey with basement, and we keep the basement about 15*C without turning the heat on down there just by leaving the basement door open. If I overheat the main level, I'll run a fan from downstairs to push some cold air up the stairwell. Seems to warm it uo a bit.

Interesting topic... It was running in the teens (f) here lately and I have been heating primarily with the stove on the 1st floor. My basement is 3/4 exposed. It has been down to 49f recently and that has me concerned. I don't have very good heating furnace wise down there - just a couple vents, no returns so heating it is difficult. Wasn't a real 'problem' before we had a stove, but now that the heat doesn't cycle it is getting COLD down there!

So... electric heat seems my best option, considering using a space heater with themostat for the time being, but may need a better long term solution. The oil tank is down there for our boiler (also feeds the hot water...) so don't want that to get too cold and jell up .. I don't know exactly what temp that is! Here we go, solve one problem, cause another eh?

Insulating the walls on my basement made a big difference.

You would be suprised what running the furnace just 1 cycle will do. I have exposure on 3/4 as well, I have 3 vents and I cut another one in. A cycle brings it up quickly.

burntime said:

You would be suprised what running the furnace just 1 cycle will do. I have exposure on 3/4 as well, I have 3 vents and I cut another one in. A cycle brings it up quickly.

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Yes....exactly what I do too. I've burned almost exclusively wood this winter thus far......but did burn roughly 10-15 gallons of oil just to keep the pipes in the basement from freezing...
Kev

Yeppers.. looks like a cold snap is coming. I guess it’s a good thing to have a stove in the basement keeping things toasty warm, but it’s a bear hauling the wood down there.

As long as the wife stays naked… I mean happy, things are good. ;-P

I have a very old house with a drafty basement...
I installed a 30k btu propane heater and leave it set to 42 degrees. So far so good.

Chris

Historically my mostly insulated basement has always stayed 50° to 55° throughout the winter when I left the two oil fired boilers running. This year I have not run the boilers at all since I changed over to NG, so there's no source of heat down there at all. A couple of weeks ago I noticed the temps had slipped down to around 45° and now I think it's closer to 40°. Insulation only prolongs the inevitable as eventially temps are getting closer to equalibrium with the ground temps since there's no source of heat down there. In fact, the IR says the slab temp on the floor is right at 40°. With the cold temps this week, it's looking like I should start leaving a couple of lights on down there. I will probably cycle the boilers a couple of times a day as well untill we get back into the teens, but my new boilers only have a few gallons of water in each with no low temp set point to keep them warm, so they will do very little to help warm the basement unless I leave them running. If I see mid 30's down there, I'll probably give in and stick a space heater near the pipes... but I cringe at the thought of doing that!

Wet1, if your basement is exposed then there is a good chance you have plumbing under the floor. I would not be comfortable with a 40 degree basement. 55 is as low as I want to go. What would it really cost to cycle the boiler? I look at it this way, wood heat is 99 % of my heat, I am not affraid to cycle the furnace.

The temperature of the soil below the frost line should be helping to maintain a non-freezing temperature in the basement.
I've sealed mine up well and it actually stays rather warm down there.
Has been worth sealing / caulking / insulating. Still have bare concrete walls although mine are rather wide stone part way and concrete block the rest.
Trying to keep the soil around the outside of the foundation as dry as possible by diverting downspout water as far away as possible sure seems to be helping, too. (No scientific measuring)

I do have one of those electric thermometers with wireless remotes that I can place different places to monitor temps.
Interesting to stick to insulated / non-insulated wall and watch the different walls temps drop as the outside temp drops.

worth putting in a basement with only outside access (like mine) or a uninsulated porch.

Good idea on the remote therm - wish I'd thought of that As I posted in another thread, my basement is only very slightly exposed. After reading this topic I went down to check after not running the HP for a couple of days and the temp was still comfortably in the 50s. Insulate and seal, especially on the exposed portions as others have said here. I second (third, or fourth at this point) the idea of cycling the boiler, furnace, heat pump when the temp dips too low down there. It's much cheaper than burst pipes or ruined appliances.

Since we want to start using our basement more (part of it's finished) but there's no real good way of getting heat from the stove down there we had actually thought about putting in a thermostatically controlled radiator-type unit (portable on wheels kind) or electric baseboard just to supplement when we were down there. You could also use this to keep your pipes from freezing if you can set the therm low enough to keep it from switching on too often.

One word HEAT TAPE, oh that's two well anyway back in the day I lived in a trailer and used heat tape on about a 40 foot run of totally exposed water line (water line wrapped by heat tape wrapped by insulation ) never had a freeze up. If your worried about your pressure tank or pump use an infrared heat lamp works great. My sisters well pit ( for those of you that don't know what a well pit is its a small pit outside that the well pump and pressure tank are kept in ) was kept warm by 2 infrared lights and some heat tape. It seems to me electric space heaters would be incredible inefficient due to the fact that they have to heat the air and then the object.

Our house is old and the basement isn't insulated - just blocks. We've only lived there 4 yrs and so far it's been a challenge to heat it. Last year we bought 1 kerosene heater, and 2 electric heaters from Sears. We ended up using 1 electric heater upstairs near the bathroom, and the other electric heater in the basement when it got really cold and set it on 65 low and it worked great. Tested them last night, cleaned and ready to go for this year.

burntime said:

Wet1, if your basement is exposed then there is a good chance you have plumbing under the floor. I would not be comfortable with a 40 degree basement. 55 is as low as I want to go. What would it really cost to cycle the boiler? I look at it this way, wood heat is 99 % of my heat, I am not affraid to cycle the furnace.

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I'm not sure what you mean by this, but only the top 18" to 20" of the basement is exposed, the rest is under ground (about 8' ceiling down there). I know where all the plumbing is, the coldest spot is near 40° right now. It can go a few degrees cooler before I get pretty concerned. At this point I'll just turn a couple of lights on and see what this does. If I see it get down to 36°, the heat will get turned on.

I am in that situiation as we speak. I have pipe freezup problems here and there when it gets below 0..I am heading to my local hardware store today and buying one of those ceramic space heaters to put down there. I typically have my oil furnace come on every day. My programmable thermostat is set for the furnace to kick on in the morning prior to getting up. I like hearing it kick on, it also gets me out of bed if it kicks on twice!

Last night it got down to about 15 degrees outside and the temp near a water pipe on the outside wall was 47 degrees. This is the coldest part of the basement because it's the area above the walkout basement door. I will let it go to 37 dergrees before cranking on the oil heat to move some hot water through the pipes. All my external pipes are wrapped in pipe insulation to add additional protection. Not sure how much more, but more than nothing at all.