heating house from basement questions

[Bridget Boyce]

Hello,

We just bought a new house and want to heat it with a wood stove. The house is 940sq feet and we plan on installing the wood stove in the middle of the basement. The basement in unfinished and has a open floor plan. We have vents in the floors of both sides of the house, so we are hoping that the heat will just rise and keep the house warm enough that we wont need to use our boiler (oil). The stove we are looking at is a Regency F2400. Here is the link and info:

http://www.houseneeds.com/shop/stoves/classic_wood_stove_main.asp

Do you think this will be the right size stove for what we are planning to do? Also our roof line is low. How high should the exterior venting be from the ground?

Thanks,
BB

 

[Pagey]

That's a relatively small house, but you may want to read the basement installation guide found here: http://www.woodstove.com/pages/basement_install.html

It's often more difficult than you think to get that heat upstairs, especially in an unfinished basement. Most installers recommend at least a 15' chimney, and then there's the 10-3-2 rule which states that the chimney must be at least 3' above the roof and, additionally, 2' higher than anything within 10' of it. See this article for chimney advice: http://www.woodstove.com/pages/good_chimney.html

 

[cmonSTART]

Agreed. I think you'll be happier with one in the living area if possible.

 

[BrotherBart]

An unfinished basement is really hard to heat from. I have a wood stove in my unfinished basement office and it contributes zip to heating the house. The basement walls absorb so much of the heat it is unbelievable. A couple of years ago somebody posted the results of testing heating a house from an unfinished basement here and if I remember correctly almost 90 percent of the heat never made it out of the basement.

 

[begreen]

Agreed that a much better plan would be to put the heat where it is needed. However, sometimes basement installations can work out, but the devil is in the details.

How much of the basement walls are underground. If you want to make this work, think about insulating these walls. The Regency might be able to do a decent job, depending on the size of the vents, their locations and a good return air passage. Is there also a basement door or open passage to the basement?

 

[cmonSTART]

And beware of the stack effect...

 

[pen]

An unfinished basement is really hard to heat from. I have a wood stove in my unfinished basement office and it contributes zip to heating the house. The basement walls absorb so much of the heat it is unbelievable. A couple of years ago somebody posted the results of testing heating a house from an unfinished basement here and if I remember correctly almost 90 percent of the heat never made it out of the basement.

It must also depend on the location of the unit and flooring in the home because in my situation I have no troubles heating from the basement. I am not saying it is the most efficient situation in the world by any means, but the wood I use is reasonable for my area and I have the added benefit of my basement being comfortable which is used as a family room / bar even though it is not completely finished.

My home is a small split level with 1000 sq ft upstairs and a little less in the basement (upstairs is cantilevered over the front of the basement wall). The foyer is on the far end of the house (garage on other end) with the wood stove directly below the foyer and accompanying steps.

The upstairs of the house is entirely tile and hardwood floors.

My basement is unfinished and divided into a 2/3 section where the wood stove is and a 1/3 section for the 1 car garage. Two of the home's 3 bedrooms are over the 1 car garage. On the coldest days in the winter with the stove cranking it would be 85 in that 2/3 basement section mid to upper 70's in the main living area's upstairs, and about 65 in the back bedrooms and about 60-65 in that one car garage. In other words, PERFECT in my little world. Bedrooms are perfectly coolish, living area warm, basement warm/hot and the garage is warm enough to melt the wifey's car off and have it ready for her in the morning.

What I find is that my upstairs floors always stay warm (with the exception of the 2 rooms over the garage) much like radiant heat found in floors. The rest of the heat just comes up the foyer with the help of the ceiling fan found directly above. A single large floor grate works as a cold air return.

Again, as a general rule I realize that having the stove where you are living is best. However for a home like mine, I'd not be able to burn wood in the main living area as there would virtually be no main living area if the stove was there. Plus, nothing beats warm floors IMO. Even if the room is 76 and the floors are cold, the house isn't comfortable. I've been in many situations like that. I never get that in my home because of the stove being in the basement.

As some would say, Perhaps I'm lucky with my circumstance, but, I'm not complaining.

pen

 

[madrone]

The best thing about a woodstove is the radiant heat, which you won't feel from the basement. That means you'd have to run it hotter to warm the upstairs. Don't put it in the basement.

 

[wolfram]

Unfortunately, there is no practical way to predict whether you will be successful in heating the upstairs using the wood stove in the basement. There are too many variables and unknowns to deal with. Odds are certainly against you. A detailed search of hearth.com might show a 20% success rate and those that succeeded usually have the stove near the stairway and also use active air movement techiques.

If you are willing to experiment, by all means, give it a try, but make sure that you have a backup plan where the stove can be properly reinstalled upstairs in the primary living area. Please let us know what you decide!

 

[Martin Strand III]

REASONS FOR NOT TRYING TO HEAT MAIN FLOOR BY BURNING A WOOD STOVE IN UNFINISHED BASEMENT

1. This violates the "basic rule" of using a wood stove in the first place: The primary function of a wood stove is to heat a local area of the home.
2. Thinking floor vents will help the heat rise to the main floor rarely works well and violates safety codes increasing risk to you and yours; in a stove/draft malfunction, smoke rises into the living/sleeping areas of the main floor.
3. Exposed masonry in an unfinished basement "eats" most of the stove heat produced.
4. Basements have more negative pressure than main floors making back drafting and starting a fire a common problem.
5. If you live on the main floor with a fire in the basement, you tend to ignore the fire. Unsupervised fires are more dangerous than supervised fires.
6. Unless you spend time near the basement fire, you do not reap the enjoyment coming from having the fire in the first place.

Of course, many will say this is pooie and basement fires work just fine for them.

Believe who you wish and good luck.

Aye,
Marty

PS: I have a basement stove in my finished basement. I am happy with this set up but believe it works well due to a few critical design factors I planned into it from the beginning. Your set up may be completely different resulting in a completely different outcome.

 

[lexybird]

maybe a small forced air wood furnace and some duct work would make more sense

 

[Bridget Boyce]

Hello Everyone,

Thank you for all of your posts!

The house is more a split level than a ranch. The walls are 3/4 cement 1/4 insulated. After reading everyones responses we will most likely be insulating all the walls. The stove (now installed) is in the center of the basement. There are multiple vents on both sides of the house (living room one side, 2 bedrooms on the order side). We do not have space upstairs for a wood stove but we are planning on finishing the basement so the stove we install would be needed in the future anyway...There is also a stairwell on the back side of the house from the basement to the kitchen. We will be leaving this door open. We also plan to cut a space for a vent directly above the stove (in our kitchen, center of the house). The only room that will not have vents is our study/book room (in the front center of the house). We don't use this room much...

We will be able to put it to the test soon but I was wondering if you think these may help

http://www.houseneeds.com/shop/airflow/airflowbreezefanmain.asp

or

http://www.houseneeds.com/shop/hvac/activentmain.asp

This is where we bought our stove and we can get these discounted for buying a package...

Thank you for your help!!

 

[thewoodlands]

When we heated the house with a pellet stove ( in the basement) we had a new thermostat install that we could just run the circulating fan on the furnace to move the hot air around in the house. This will be the first year heating with a woodstove that is in the basement (walls are insulated on the inside) so far the coldest night has been about 38-40 and we have not had a problem with heat getting upstairs with our setup. We will see how it works out in the dead of winter. We have not used the circulating fan yet. The cellar is finished of with tongue & groove pine with the ceiling insulated about 1 foot in.

Zap

 

[GunSeth]

We installed a stove in our unfinished basement last summer, mainly because there was already a chimney installed that ran into the basement. We sure heated the hell out of the basement but as others have said the heat didn't really transfer well to the upstairs. We still needed to use oil to heat the house. That said, we definitely used a lot less oil than the previous winter. Because I had to buy cord wood I'd say the cost benefit was a wash but since I've been scrounging and buying log wood I'll be spending a lot less money on wood this winter so the wood cost should come down. We burned the entire winter and there was one incident of back draft where carbon monoxide came back into the house so that was bad.

We plan on finishing our basement in the coming months so the stove will then become more useful for heating our new family room as well as providing ambience.

 

[Wet1]

Hi Bridget,

I'd save cutting holes in the floors for last. You might not need them, but once you've made the cut you're stuck with the hole...

The first thing you should do (after securing seasoned firewood) is to insulate the basement. I can't emphasize this enough! Exposed concrete will rob your heat like there's no tomorrow.

Like Marty, I can heat from the basement as well with very good results, but my basement is insulated, the stove is isolated and located near the stairs, and I use active air management to help things along.