new here, lots of questions

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ColdNH

ColdNH

Minister of Fire
Oct 14, 2009
599
Southern, NH
I have been lurking here for a while trying to educate myself. but there is so much information out there.

Here is my situation.

I moved into a small cape two years ago, 1600 SQ feet including half of the basement, when we bought the house there was a brick hearth in the basement, but no stove. there is also a metal chimney which is wrapped in siding which goes above the roof line, the chimney is capped up top with a flat stone.

We have decided that we want to go the pellet stove route, but i have many questions and concerns. money is a little tight with a wedding coming up, but i do not want to go a super cheap route and risk fire. I would like to have a proffesional come check out the chimney and install the pellette stove. (im assuming there are proffesionals that do this service?)

Would a wood stove flue work for a pelette stove?

i was also wondering how much the stove will warm my house with it being in the basement, the previous owner did install two ceiling-floor vents in the basement ceiling above the stove. and the staircase is centrally located. I know the top floor wont get too much benefit from it being in the basement, but will the first floor make a good benefit? without the basement getting too hot since we do spend alot of time down there on the finished side?

Also what is a good brand and size stove to get for a 250 sq foot room/ 1600 sq foot house?

and finnally what kinda ballpark cost am i looking at to get a new stove installed and the chimney checked out?

Thanks in advance


Chris
 
You "can" hook a pellet stove up to a wood chimney. You run a risk of not having enough draft with the low flue temps a pellet stove has. The option would be to purchase a 3" stainless liner kit ($400 dollar range) along with your pellet stove. I would suggest something about 40K Btus.
If your going to buy a decent stove, from a reputable hearth retailer and have it proffesionally installed, I would budget $3000-$3500 for the total job, stove (about 2000,liner, 400ish, install 500ish.
All homes are different with how the heat flows, but with the basement door open and the vents in the floor, you should end up with a good heat and return.
 
ColdNH, welcome to the forum.

As for your question, most stove shops that sell stoves also do installs, or will give names of people they recommend. In the absence of that, or if you want a 2nd or 3rd opinion, use this site to find installers in your area....just put your zip code in. It sorts by distance, with closest first.

Also a good place if you get the stove "mail order".

www.stovesdirect.com/installers.php
 
Is basement insulated? If not I would not consider installing in basement as concrete would suck alot of the heat (cost you more to heat). You will need a 3" liner for the wood stove chimney, most manufacturers recommend no more than a 15' EVL if more than 15 go up to a 4" exhust pipe.
 
I agree w/ ronlat if the basement isn't insulated....but even if it is, the basement will have to be pretty hot to allow any significant heat to make it upstairs.

And even w/ the floor vents and stairwell, it still may not do much. Pellet stoves are area (room) heaters mostly.....meant to heat 1 or 2 rooms, and anything after that is just a bonus.
 
macman said:
I agree w/ ronlat if the basement isn't insulated....but even if it is, the basement will have to be pretty hot to allow any significant heat to make it upstairs.

And even w/ the floor vents and stairwell, it still may not do much. Pellet stoves are area (room) heaters mostly.....meant to heat 1 or 2 rooms, and anything after that is just a bonus.
Click to expand...

Just my 2 cents from a newbie with 1 year under my belt:
When we were considering putting our stove in the basement, many members advised against it.
Our basement is not insulated. We have a 1536 sf Cape not counting the basement.
I listened to the other members of the board and put the stove on the first floor.
In our case it was the right thing to do.
Remember, the pellet stove is a "powerful" space heater not a central heating system.

Good Luck and be warm
 
lessoil said:
macman said:
I agree w/ ronlat if the basement isn't insulated....but even if it is, the basement will have to be pretty hot to allow any significant heat to make it upstairs.

And even w/ the floor vents and stairwell, it still may not do much. Pellet stoves are area (room) heaters mostly.....meant to heat 1 or 2 rooms, and anything after that is just a bonus.
Click to expand...

Just my 2 cents from a newbie with 1 year under my belt:
When we were considering putting our stove in the basement, many members advised against it.
Our basement is not insulated. We have a 1536 sf Cape not counting the basement.
I listened to the other members of the board and put the stove on the first floor.
In our case it was the right thing to do.
Remember, the pellet stove is a "powerful" space heater not a central heating system.

Good Luck and be warm
Click to expand...

I agree with the last 3 posts. Put the stove on the main floor. You will be warmer=happier!
 
ColdNH said:
Also what is a good brand and size stove to get for a 250 sq foot room/ 1600 sq foot house?
Click to expand...

There are so many good brands/models that will suit your needs, research
on your part will take some time. Tons of great info already here on this
forum. Search feature works fairly well too. You may want to go visit a few dealers
and get an idea of whats available in your area. I'm also with the guys
on placing the stove in the main level of the house. Rule of thumb usually
is to put the stove where you need the heat the most.
 
Put the stove where you want the heat... I'm assuming you don't live in the basement.

Pellet stoves are space heaters... nothing more. they work very well at what they do.
 
While I don't disagree with all the posts here. I put mine in the basement as I had no other place to put it. I too have a cape 2000sq/ft. The stove runs from November to April and I burned 3 tons and a hundred gal of oil in the furnace mostly for hot water and to supplement the heat on the second floor. These were the temps in the house

Basement 78* to 80*
First floor 70* to 73*
Second floor a constant 68*

I have a 70,00 btu Enviro max than never runs above the medium setting except when it's below 0*
 
Putting the stove in the basement has been discussed on here many times. If the basement is finished, you can consider it, although the first floor would be better. Of course, if you do have a living area down there and spend most of your time down there, that is were it should go. If it isn't finished, I wouldn't.

You do however already have vents in the floor to distribute heat, so that will help if you do decide to go that route.

If you do put the stove in the basement get a big one. The Harman P68 is pretty beefy. I did a lot of research before I bought my stove and all though all stoves have their problems, Harman's seem to have less of them.

Of course, they were bought out by Qaudra Fire early last year of late 2007 so I don't know how the quality is now.

I do know someone up the street that has their stove in the basement in thier TV room and he likes it. His house seemed warm enough to me.

To re-iterate if the basement is unfinished, don't bother.

Mark :)
 
Quadrafire did not buy Harman, the parent company that owns QuadraFire bought Harman.

Anyhow, I DO have a stove in my basement and it heats the first floor very well for me
because of my floorplan. However, this will not work for everyone.

I must agree with the others that if you spend most your time on the first floor and
you have the room, best to install it there.
 
ColdNH said:
I have been lurking here for a while trying to educate myself. but there is so much information out there.

Here is my situation.

I moved into a small cape two years ago, 1600 SQ feet including half of the basement, when we bought the house there was a brick hearth in the basement, but no stove. there is also a metal chimney which is wrapped in siding which goes above the roof line, the chimney is capped up top with a flat stone.

We have decided that we want to go the pellet stove route, but i have many questions and concerns. money is a little tight with a wedding coming up, but i do not want to go a super cheap route and risk fire. I would like to have a proffesional come check out the chimney and install the pellette stove. (im assuming there are proffesionals that do this service?)

Would a wood stove flue work for a pelette stove?

i was also wondering how much the stove will warm my house with it being in the basement, the previous owner did install two ceiling-floor vents in the basement ceiling above the stove. and the staircase is centrally located. I know the top floor wont get too much benefit from it being in the basement, but will the first floor make a good benefit? without the basement getting too hot since we do spend alot of time down there on the finished side?

Also what is a good brand and size stove to get for a 250 sq foot room/ 1600 sq foot house?

and finnally what kinda ballpark cost am i looking at to get a new stove installed and the chimney checked out?

Thanks in advance


Chris
Click to expand...

If ya want it in the basement, get a pellet furnace and put it in the basement. BUT, that's just MY opinion.
 
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