Heating a Ranch House-newbie

gopwillie said:

Hi, I'm brand new here.

I have a ranch home - about 1300 sq feet upstairs, plus about 700 sq feet of finished basement downstairs. I have a heat pump for the upstairs (I occasionally us the old electric baseboards, too, on very cold days), and only electric baseboards downstairs.

We spend most of our time upstairs, only being downstairs in the evenings (8:00-11:00 pm), and some more on the weekends.

Can I put a pellet stove in the basement (it's mostly above ground) and hope I get enough heat upstairs to make sense? I don't mind my heat pump running a bit, I just hate having it killing itself all the time. Or would I be best off putting a stove in my living room upstairs where we are most of the time? I just hate having to put it right in the room we're in most of the time.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

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Unless your basement is finished and you spend time there, I wouldn't put it there. Pellet stoves work by pushing hot air around the house by convection current. All the stove in the basement would do is heat your basement, not your house. If you have a fireplace, you could get an insert, they don't take up much floor space,

You will want it in the room you spend the most time in. Keep in mind that heat rises, so if you put it upstairs, none of it will go to the basement area. If you put it in your basement, is your basement completely insulated. Cement will absorb all the heat and then none of the heat will rise upstairs and it will be a waste.

gopwillie said:

Hi, I'm brand new here.

I have a ranch home - about 1300 sq feet upstairs, plus about 700 sq feet of finished basement downstairs. I have a heat pump for the upstairs (I occasionally us the old electric baseboards, too, on very cold days), and only electric baseboards downstairs.

We spend most of our time upstairs, only being downstairs in the evenings (8:00-11:00 pm), and some more on the weekends.

Can I put a pellet stove in the basement (it's mostly above ground) and hope I get enough heat upstairs to make sense? I don't mind my heat pump running a bit, I just hate having it killing itself all the time. Or would I be best off putting a stove in my living room upstairs where we are most of the time? I just hate having to put it right in the room we're in most of the time.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Click to expand...

If your house has a stairwell to basement that is approx centered and your stove located where it would blow the heat up it you might do quite fine after all.
I`m not fortunate enough to have that optimum situation therefore I have to be satisfied with heating 600-700 sq ft of finished basement and whatever heat I can force up a 10" X 12" floor vent with an auxiliary fan. It actually works pretty good but I can`t say that I`m able to heat the first floor to a satisfactory temperature so I rely on my oil furnace to bring it up to a more comfortable level and especially on the second floor.
So in summary, unless you have a good way to move the heat up to your first floor I suggest you might think about installing the stove upstairs and heat the basement room/s only when needed. I might do this myself someday if the oil goes out of sight again but at that point in time pellets probably won`t be much cheaper either.

We have a 48' x 28' ranch with a full walk out daylight basement with a rather large finished room and a garage. Back of the house lower than the front as the house sits into the side of a slope.

Our stove sits in the basement in a corner, it heats the finished room and the excess goes up over the stairs (centered between the garage and finished basement room) and heats the first floor. We started out using the large ceiling fans to disperse the heated air on the first floor and discovered that the stove could handle that without assistance.

It is all a matter of airflow in the house and how well the house is insulated and sealed as to what will happen.

SmokeyTheBear said:

We have a 48' x 28' ranch with a full walk out daylight basement with a rather large finished room and a garage. Back of the house lower than the front as the house sits into the side of a slope.

Our stove sits in the basement in a corner, it heats the finished room and the excess goes up over the stairs (centered between the garage and finished basement room) and heats the first floor. We started out using the large ceiling fans to disperse the heated air on the first floor and discovered that the stove could handle that without assistance.

It is all a matter of airflow in the house and how well the house is insulated and sealed as to what will happen.

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How many bags a day and how warm is the upstairs?

i have a p68 in my 420 square foot finished basement. it heats that space and then rises through the vents i put in each of my 4 big rooms on first floor of my 1 1/2 story cape. i have been able to keep my first floor(approx. 900 sq ft) at 70 no problem, granted the basement room is a toasty 75-80(which isnt bad when its absolutely freezing outside). i also heat the first room on second floor(approx. 150 sq ft) to about 67-68 or so. i have been burning about a bag and a half a day and the second bedroom upstairs i keep warm with the oil burner on its own zone. i haven't bought oil since august and still have 1/4 tank and a little over 2 tons of the 4 i bought last summer in pellets. so it is doable, BUT you need to have an insulated, finished basement and you need a stove big enough to do what your asking.

el gordo said:

i have a p68 in my 420 square foot finished basement. it heats that space and then rises through the vents i put in each of my 4 big rooms on first floor of my 1 1/2 story cape. i have been able to keep my first floor(approx. 900 sq ft) at 70 no problem, granted the basement room is a toasty 75-80(which isnt bad when its absolutely freezing outside). i also heat the first room on second floor(approx. 150 sq ft) to about 67-68 or so. i have been burning about a bag and a half a day and the second bedroom upstairs i keep warm with the oil burner on its own zone. i haven't bought oil since august and still have 1/4 tank and a little over 2 tons of the 4 i bought last summer in pellets. so it is doable, BUT you need to have an insulated, finished basement and you need a stove big enough to do what your asking.

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Sounds pretty good and it`s probably doable since your house is a small cape (with a small footprint) which is ideal and probably the most economical design for heating with a staircase in the middle but you did manage to burn 3/4 tank of oil (210 gals) too during then fall season to date.
However, the OP has a ranch that is normally longer with areas that are harder to heat with a pellet stove in the basement.
In my opinion you are heating the basement beyond what I consider to be comfortable as 75-80 is a bit warm but I do think you need to get the room that warm to get a significant air exchange / convection from one floor to another.

When I consider that I have a ranch and have used less than a tank of oil myself since August 14th (refilled last week, 180 gal) and less than 2 tons of pellets and I`m heating a total of 2400 sq ft then maybe I`m doing very well too but the truth is I`d probably be doing better with the stove upstairs and heating the already zoned basement with oil. I could leave that finished basement on low and turn it up only when in use.
I firmly subscribe to the general consensus of this forum that the stove should be placed in the main area of the house.

I have a similar home. 1300 foot ranch upstairs and approx 400 sq downstairs finished. We were going to put our pellet stove in the part of our basement that is unfinished and were advised against it. We have it upstairs in the living room and it heats the whole 1300 square feet very well. We use 1 - 1.5 bags depending on how cold is outside. There is not much of a temperature difference from where the pellet stove is to the furthest room..

Gio said:

SmokeyTheBear said:

We have a 48' x 28' ranch with a full walk out daylight basement with a rather large finished room and a garage. Back of the house lower than the front as the house sits into the side of a slope.

Our stove sits in the basement in a corner, it heats the finished room and the excess goes up over the stairs (centered between the garage and finished basement room) and heats the first floor. We started out using the large ceiling fans to disperse the heated air on the first floor and discovered that the stove could handle that without assistance.

It is all a matter of airflow in the house and how well the house is insulated and sealed as to what will happen.

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How many bags a day and how warm is the upstairs?

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That all depends upon the outside temperature and whether or not I turn up the stove.

I run on stove temp, upstairs is frequently over 68 (which is just about right for us) and is always above 60 this thermometer is located on a wall in the living room shielded from the stairwell and the downstairs room 27' by 20' is in the seventies (no thermometer down here). I rarely have the stove above its #2 heat setting 1 to 1.5 bags. I don't think I've ever gone through 2 bags in a day. Lowest temperature here was 17 below last week I would have to burn at 3 and up to get to 2 bags. Up until yesterday I wouldn't trust the stove to burn at level 3 overnight and haven't really tried 4 and 5 except during burn in. Let's just say blower motor issues. I currently have the best looking fire I've ever had after 22 hours.

Anyone wanting to heat a house really needs to use a heat loss calculator and figures from their own house in order to get the proper sized stove setup. Otherwise you are tilting at windmills. You also need to know the airflow patterns which is likely to be a challenge.

Air infiltration will be one of the three major issues, it will result in the most heat loss of the structure, in fact it can easily exceed all other aspects such as walls, windows, attic, slabs, and cap. In extreme cases it can exceed all of the other heat loss areas combined and might even use up every single bit of heat some pellet stoves can muster.

Sorry to be so long winded, but as others have said a BTU is a BTU and you need to know how many of them you need to start with or else it just ain't gonna work without a lot of retro fit and hair pulling.