I have a Quad 4100i and this is our first year with a stove. It burns perfectly and I am having zero issues with the stove, but I am having issues with the house. We got the stove since our propane bill was insane last year and thought the stove would solve our issues. Well, I have figured out that our issues are more insulation related. The basement is not finished and not insulated. To compound the issue, the people who built the house have a garage door leading directly into the basement so you can basically drive a car into the basement. The garage door is obviously not airtight and thus the basement gets pretty cold. With the basement cold and no insulation between the joists the wood floors on the first floor are cold and I feel this is a major contributor to us having issues. Our house is a chalet type house and thus the entire front of the house is a wall of windows with a peaked ceiling that must be 30'+ high. We do have a ceiling fan and that helps, but its difficult to move the air around. The back two bedrooms on the first floor are the kid's rooms and they are really difficult to keep warm. The main living area we can get to 70ºF running the stove at nearly max output, but the back rooms will be lucky to stay at 60ºF. This is with temps in the 15-25ºF range outside. I have put two small electric heaters in the kids rooms at night and we close their doors. The heaters have thermostats and we can keep their rooms around 67ºF at night, but I don't want to be using the heaters.
So now what do I do? The chase is cantilevered out and the space below it has insulation, but no vapor barrier and you can feel the cold air coming in. I plan on adding foam sheathing insulation across the front of that space and seal the joints with spray foam. i plan on doing the rest of the rim joists in a similar manner. Basically like this
Now I plan on replacing the garage door with french doors, but that won't be until next year. I also plan on finishing the basement, but thats going to be a slow process over time. I think I can just add insulation to the rim joints and then add insulation between the joists under the first floor. Can I use unfaced insulation since this is merely going to be for this year? I am just looking for a temporary fix. The other option is to insulate the basement walls, but that will be considerably more money and money I just don't have right now.
The last issue is the chase is not insulated at all behind the firebox. Is it worth it to try and insulate that as well? If I do I have to either rip off the stone from around the fireplace or rip off the stone off the chase on the outside. I figure insulating this area will help, but not sure if its going to help that much with my current situation.
sorry for the long post
So now what do I do? The chase is cantilevered out and the space below it has insulation, but no vapor barrier and you can feel the cold air coming in. I plan on adding foam sheathing insulation across the front of that space and seal the joints with spray foam. i plan on doing the rest of the rim joists in a similar manner. Basically like this
Now I plan on replacing the garage door with french doors, but that won't be until next year. I also plan on finishing the basement, but thats going to be a slow process over time. I think I can just add insulation to the rim joints and then add insulation between the joists under the first floor. Can I use unfaced insulation since this is merely going to be for this year? I am just looking for a temporary fix. The other option is to insulate the basement walls, but that will be considerably more money and money I just don't have right now.
The last issue is the chase is not insulated at all behind the firebox. Is it worth it to try and insulate that as well? If I do I have to either rip off the stone from around the fireplace or rip off the stone off the chase on the outside. I figure insulating this area will help, but not sure if its going to help that much with my current situation.
sorry for the long post
