Best location for stove.

[mohawk]

I was hoping someone would have an opinion where the best spot to put another stove in our home would be . We have approx. 3000 sf. on 3 floors. Basement and 1st floor have the same amount-around 1200 sf. The 2nd floor has the bedrooms and bathrooms with the remainder. On the 1st floor behind the garage is our family room and I have a Lopi Freedom Bay insert installed. It does a great job of heating,-sometimes to much- but my home is older and doesn't have an open floor plan so it's hard to move the heat around. I try to move the air with ceiling fans to the foyer so it can rise upstairs, but it hasn't been very successful. I could put a stove next to the foyer in the living room, but was wondering if I should put it in the basement instead. We use the basement and 1/2 of it is finished. It is never very warm down there because of the way they originally ran the heat so we end up using a space heater most of the time. I have a living room, kitchen, bed and bath down there and it is a walk out basement. Anyone have ideas which would be a better use of the stove? If heat rises wouldn't the basement be a good choice? My furnace fan runs on DC so it is always running to help move air. Any thoughts?

 

[zzr7ky]

Hi -

I'm wondering:

How much wood are you burning now?

How much it costs you, can you get more at a reasonable cost?

How well insulated is the basement?

How much the basement stove would be used?

If the living space is occupied a fair amount of the time and wood is'n hard to come by, a large stove (3 cubic ft. min. firebox) might make sense it could be fired a couple times a day.

That said, most basements are not insulated well and insulating tends to pay back quicker.

ATB,
Mike

 

[Wet1]

Posting your floor plan would be pretty helpful.

You might want to consider a wood boiler or furnace as well.

 

[lexybird]

id get an indoor wood furnace

 

[mohawk]

Right now we go through less than 1 cord because I can't distribute the heat around the house very well. We live in MN, so I assume the finished part of the basement is insulated well. The walls seem fairly warm in the winter-definitely not as cold as the outside.We use the basement daily so it would be nice not to have to use a space heater anymore. As for the furnace, we had that replaced 2 yrs ago with a Bryant 90i-very efficient and supplementing with a Carrier heat pump. The fan motor runs on DC and is always on moving air around the house. The ceilings in the basement are 6 1/2 -7 ' tall. The heat ducts are in the ceiling and not down at the floor-which is why it's hard to keep it warm with the furnace. I'll try to post a not to scale floor plan.

 

[Hiram Maxim]

id get an indoor wood furnace

Sounds like a good idea!