Hi all,
Excuse my questions if they are truly silly but would like to get a view of what's possible and not with Wood Stoves/Inserts as i'm on the fence with my house.
Basically I was central air with furnace AND radiant heating in two zones. I have a heat/air exchange / circulator in the ceiling of my basement. I have three floors - the basement which has the furnace (oil), main floor (zone 1) and top floor (zone 2). Each floor has about 15ft ceilings. The duct work goes all over the house from my existing system, including one half of the finished part of my basement. I'm unsure that the basement ducts do a lot - doesn't seem to heat for example more so placeholders perhaps.
So to my questions. Today I have a lovely $2500 ish oil bill and we are very non-wasteful as a house. I've insulated all the heating pipes in the basement to keep the water nice and toasty but now i'm thinking heat.
On my main floor which is ALL open plan (and almost S shaped) I have a fireplace in one end of the S with a Fireplace Blower (Cozy grate). This does nothing for the floor other than heat the one room to an excessive temp and the rest of the floor is cold when using this. I live in the woods and have a LOT of wood at my disposal. I'm contemplating two options and don't know if they are worth it.
1. The basement. The house is built with an outlet for a stove in the basement. I don't use my basement (yet) but I assume a stove wouldn't do too much for my 2nd floor / living room etc? (I might be wrong). All in all the two floors would be around 2500 square ft and have high ceilings. If my assumption that running a stove in the basement wouldn't keep my 2nd floor toasty is correct, is it possible to some how hook the heat from the stove and use the fans or circulator from my AC etc and circulate the hot air easily? I don't want to get rid of the oil furnace, more so use the fans that blow air around the house. Not sure if that's possible? Assuming i'd need to mod something.
2. The 2nd floor. Like I said, I have a cozy grate blower which warms one smallish room and AC / heat vents all over the floor. Bearing in mind my floor plan is open, has a further exposure where the staircase goes up (nearly 40ft), would an insert do anything more than a fireplace blower? I don't want to spend the money again buying something that wouldn't at LEAST heat my 2nd floor from the 'zig-zagd' floor plan. The 'cozy grate' claimed to be 40,000btu but doesn't heat 5ft out of the room the fireplace is in.
Hope my questions make sense, basically just don't want to run out and buy something that's not going to benefit. I'm trying to reduce the oil use, MOSTLY use the 2nd floor and would be extra awesome if I would heat up to the 3rd without making massive change.
Thx!
Andy
Excuse my questions if they are truly silly but would like to get a view of what's possible and not with Wood Stoves/Inserts as i'm on the fence with my house.
Basically I was central air with furnace AND radiant heating in two zones. I have a heat/air exchange / circulator in the ceiling of my basement. I have three floors - the basement which has the furnace (oil), main floor (zone 1) and top floor (zone 2). Each floor has about 15ft ceilings. The duct work goes all over the house from my existing system, including one half of the finished part of my basement. I'm unsure that the basement ducts do a lot - doesn't seem to heat for example more so placeholders perhaps.
So to my questions. Today I have a lovely $2500 ish oil bill and we are very non-wasteful as a house. I've insulated all the heating pipes in the basement to keep the water nice and toasty but now i'm thinking heat.
On my main floor which is ALL open plan (and almost S shaped) I have a fireplace in one end of the S with a Fireplace Blower (Cozy grate). This does nothing for the floor other than heat the one room to an excessive temp and the rest of the floor is cold when using this. I live in the woods and have a LOT of wood at my disposal. I'm contemplating two options and don't know if they are worth it.
1. The basement. The house is built with an outlet for a stove in the basement. I don't use my basement (yet) but I assume a stove wouldn't do too much for my 2nd floor / living room etc? (I might be wrong). All in all the two floors would be around 2500 square ft and have high ceilings. If my assumption that running a stove in the basement wouldn't keep my 2nd floor toasty is correct, is it possible to some how hook the heat from the stove and use the fans or circulator from my AC etc and circulate the hot air easily? I don't want to get rid of the oil furnace, more so use the fans that blow air around the house. Not sure if that's possible? Assuming i'd need to mod something.
2. The 2nd floor. Like I said, I have a cozy grate blower which warms one smallish room and AC / heat vents all over the floor. Bearing in mind my floor plan is open, has a further exposure where the staircase goes up (nearly 40ft), would an insert do anything more than a fireplace blower? I don't want to spend the money again buying something that wouldn't at LEAST heat my 2nd floor from the 'zig-zagd' floor plan. The 'cozy grate' claimed to be 40,000btu but doesn't heat 5ft out of the room the fireplace is in.
Hope my questions make sense, basically just don't want to run out and buy something that's not going to benefit. I'm trying to reduce the oil use, MOSTLY use the 2nd floor and would be extra awesome if I would heat up to the 3rd without making massive change.
Thx!
Andy