Holy Heat Batman.....overkill? Osburn 2300 is cooking me out of my house!

[Swedishchef]

Hey guys

During this past spring, I finished my basement. For insulation on the exterior walls and rim joists, I put 1.5 inches of spray foam directly on the concrete (acts as a vapour barier and is air tight). Then, once I put up my studs, I installed R14 roxul between the studs.

Now here's my issue: I lit a fire this afternoon. It was 4 degrees C outside at 18 degrees in my basement. Some kindling and 3 pieces of poplar produced a basement heat of 27 degrees within 3 hours... I am sweating to death!

I now realize I won't burn more than 2 MAYBE 3 cords of wood. It would simply be too hot in my house. My upstairs temps are cozy and I only have a staircase to let the heat rise. Obviously the floors warm up which heats the main floor.

I never thought my Osburn 2300 would heat like that. I am very pleased with this stove...

Does anybody else have an issue similar to mine?

Andrew

 

[begreen]

This is not untypical with a stove in an insulated basement. We have folks reporting basement temps of 35C and higher. The stove is an area heater. When it gets down to -20 C it will be more comfortable in the basement, though the upstairs may start to get a bit chilly. To assist evening out the temps, take a 12" desk fan and place it at the top of the stairs, pointing downstairs and run it on low. Blow the cooler air toward the warm. That will assist heat circulation and will help moderate the basement temps.

 

[branchburner]

Does anybody else have an issue similar to mine?

Maybe the one other guy who REALLY insulated his basement - amazing what it will do. Teachable moment here...

 

[Swedishchef]

BeGreen,

I have a nice 12 inch commercial fan. I am indeed pointing it downstairs to help with the passive heating. It seems to work well. Very well indeed.

Branch; new building codes in parts of Canada are requiring that you insulate the ENTIRE basement wall R19 (in Ontario) if you have electric heat in the basement. I went a little nuts and put R24. Why not? 3-4 feet of my basement wall is out of the ground (and the upstairs is R24) PLUS the frost will go down 3-4 feet.

Insulating saves HUGE amounts of greenhouse gases in the long run since you don't have to crank the heaters to warm it up, therefore, allowing a bit of a break on the electricity grid. I believe they said that if ever new house insulates with R19, it would be the equivalent of taking 40 000-50 000 cars off of the road in terms of reduction of greenhouse gases. And in reality, insulating my 160 foot perimeter with R20 batt would cost about $800 in materials. You will certainly recuperate that $$ in heating cost savings.

http://www.mah.gov.on.ca/AssetFactory.aspx?did=8404


Andrew

 

[Lumber-Jack]

Hey guys

During this past spring, I finished my basement. For insulation on the exterior walls and rim joists, I put 1.5 inches of spray foam directly on the concrete (acts as a vapour barier and is air tight). Then, once I put up my studs, I installed R14 roxul between the studs.

Now here's my issue: I lit a fire this afternoon. It was 4 degrees C outside at 18 degrees in my basement. Some kindling and 3 pieces of poplar produced a basement heat of 27 degrees within 3 hours... I am sweating to death!

I now realize I won't burn more than 2 MAYBE 3 cords of wood. It would simply be too hot in my house. My upstairs temps are cozy and I only have a staircase to let the heat rise. Obviously the floors warm up which heats the main floor.

I never thought my Osburn 2300 would heat like that. I am very pleased with this stove...

Does anybody else have an issue similar to mine?

Andrew

Yeah Andrew, I use to post in this forum about how I use to heat a 2,000 sq. ft. house with a wood stove in a below ground level basement. It was often very warm in the basement stove room, but the upstairs was the most comfortably heated house I ever lived in. Of course I got a lot of replies saying it couldn't work, or I was wasting heat, and so on and so on,,, What I finally came to realize is that a lot of homes (especially in the USA) must not have properly insulated basements and that was where these comments were coming from.
I also came to realize that it doesn't mater how right you may be about something, as long as there are more people in a forum like this posting opposing views you'll be viewed as the one being wrong.
Enjoy your well insulated basement.

 

[summit]

wait till it gets -20 outside, it'll be a little less overkill then... these shoulder season burns can be a little misleading. For example: Been runnin the summit part time 1/4 full with crappy poplar, and it roasts us up in good order. However, when it gets to late january that small fuel load wont cut it, and the thing will be runnin 24/7 on oak, beech and maple to keep it a comfy 75 deg in the house. But, as my Daddy always said: "better to have it and not need it, then to need it and not have it!"

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Hey guys

During this past spring, I finished my basement. For insulation on the exterior walls and rim joists, I put 1.5 inches of spray foam directly on the concrete (acts as a vapour barier and is air tight). Then, once I put up my studs, I installed R14 roxul between the studs.

Now here's my issue: I lit a fire this afternoon. It was 4 degrees C outside at 18 degrees in my basement. Some kindling and 3 pieces of poplar produced a basement heat of 27 degrees within 3 hours... I am sweating to death!

I now realize I won't burn more than 2 MAYBE 3 cords of wood. It would simply be too hot in my house. My upstairs temps are cozy and I only have a staircase to let the heat rise. Obviously the floors warm up which heats the main floor.

I never thought my Osburn 2300 would heat like that. I am very pleased with this stove...

Does anybody else have an issue similar to mine?

Andrew

Yeah Andrew, I use to post in this forum about how I use to heat a 2,000 sq. ft. house with a wood stove in a below ground level basement. It was often very warm in the basement stove room, but the upstairs was the most comfortably heated house I ever lived in. Of course I got a lot of replies saying it couldn't work, or I was wasting heat, and so on and so on,,, What I finally came to realize is that a lot of homes (especially in the USA) must not have properly insulated basements and that was where these comments were coming from.
I also came to realize that it doesn't mater how right you may be about something, as long as there are more people in a forum like this posting opposing views you'll be viewed as the one being wrong.
Enjoy your well insulated basement.

Andrew and Carbon, you are correct that many folks do not have insulated basements and I'm happy you do it right. Also Andrew, we hear comments like yours every fall when folks are amazed how much heat they get from there nice new stove but as you well know, the heating season is just beginning and we do not need a whole lot of heat right now. I just hope that you say the same thing in January-February....and in this case, I'm sure you will but maybe not quite as hot in that basement then.

Carbon, your statement (in bold) I do not think is necessarily true. A lot of us do like to hear opposing views; some we'll agree on and some we won't. I really like it when folks are not afraid to do some experimenting rather than just taking someone's word for things, especially when that someone might be an old feller who has burned wood for a super long time and thinks there is no way like the old way.

 

[woodburn]

I agree with summit, that it won't be so bad in the winter. Also, I strongly suggest if at all possible to cut some holes in the ceiling right above where the stove is. You will get a ton of heat in the room above, and you can put some nice decorative registers on the floor that can even be closed off if you wish. This will help let some heat OUT of the hot basement and IN to the main floor. It's a win/win situation! Just take into consideration that if you make lots of noise in the basement (power tools, instruments...) you will get some noise pollution upstairs. Although, if you are leaving the door open anyway to run the fan, I guess that's not an issue.

 

[Swedishchef]

I think this winter will be just nice. Last winter, with just the spray foam on the walls and NO divisions in the basement, my stove was still heating the main floor. Now that the basement has even more insulation (another R14) and the divisions are up, it'll make a big difference.

I am looking at adding some nice registers. Directly above my stove is my dining room. I may add a nice 16X16 inch cast iron Cold Air return/grate and a couple of registers elsewhere to help with passive heating.

I do believe that most people don't insulate their basement properly; most people think that because 2/3 of the wall is below ground it must not need much insulation. Yes the walls which sit directly onto the foundation are insulated with at least R20. One place that most people lose heat is the Rim joists. There's usually only 3-4.5 inches of wood seperating the inside from the outside. A friend of mine had an energy audit completed and the technician told him that you can lose about 40% of your heat through there (via co0ld floors on the main floor, etc)>

Andrew

 

[branchburner]

I believe they said that if ever new house insulates with R19, it would be the equivalent of taking 40 000-50 000 cars off of the road in terms of reduction of greenhouse gases. And in reality, insulating my 160 foot perimeter with R20 batt would cost about $800 in materials. You will certainly recuperate that $$ in heating cost savings.

I think a lot of people don't fully grasp the payback concept: a reasonable upfront investment now gives dividends every year and you quickly end up ahead of the game. It is easier to perceive that direct savings when switching from oil to wood, but a little harder for many to realize that more insulation means much less fuel, of whatever type.

The same threads pop up every so often: QUESTION - What kind of stove should I get to heat my uninsulated house? ANSWER - Insulation.

 

[Swedishchef]

I believe that payback is advantageous to a certain point: I am not about to install solar pannels on the roof of my house. However, it's all about cost effectiveness. Where I live, Electricity is pretty cheap. And I still installed good insulation. There are lots of other places where it's expensive and people don't bother. They put 1 inch of foam boards on the wall, that's it.

Thanks for the comments Dennis. It's always a pleasure hearing from you. I agree that different opinions are nice to hear. There's the "old" way and the "new way" to everything in this world. My FIL keeps telling me " we didn't do it like that when I built my house" and I always reply "building codes barely didn't exist back then!"

He now has the heating with wood bug and I am trying to teach him lots. Once upon a time he heated with wood. He hooked up his stove once again and is using an OLD stove from Sears that looks like this:
http://www.newmacfurnaces.com/showroom/index.html
His is NOT EPA. When he opens the door to light, I see almost all the flame getting sucked right out the flue hole...how the heck can it heat with all the heat leaving via the chimney?


Andrew

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Thanks Andrew. You are right. With the heat going up the chimney, not so much gets to where it is really wanted and needed.

Those cabinet type stoves once seemed to be quite big and they can be fairly nice for those who worry about small children getting burned as the cabinet provides some protection. The drawback is that same protection also steels some heat. We had one once and it did a reasonable job but we definitely used more fuel and were not entirely comfortable during the really cold of the winter.

Now if you can teach that man that the old ways are not necessarily the best..... Good luck. Hey, tell him you know now that old dogs can learn new tricks. You can use me for an example of that. Well, maybe not. There are some that think I'm a bad example of everything. lol