New from Northeast Pennsylvania

[max384]

Hey guys and gals

I've been lurking here for a little while, and finally decided to create an account and say hi... and ask some questions.

I'm from northeast Pennsylvania and recently moved into a new home. The home is about ten years old and is propane heated, and has a propane fireplace upstairs. It is a one story ranch with a full walk-in basement (so the back of the house is essentially two-story, and the front is one story, if that makes sense). The upstairs is about 2000 sqft, and about 1000 sqft of the basement is finished, and 1000 sqft is unfinished.

I am planning on putting in a wood stove in the main room of the finished basement area. It is one large room that is about 750 sqft. It is a long thin room (17' x 45'), and the wood stove would be placed on one side of the room against one of the short walls (so, about 45 feet from the other side).

My goal for the wood stove is really just to heat the one room of the finished portion of my basement. I would plan to close all heating vents from the propane furnace in this area so that it could be heated solely by the wood stove. I have an unlimited supply of free wood where I live, all I have to do is cut and split it, of course, so this will cut down on heating costs... But, in actuality, my main motivation for the wood stove is the ambiance of having one. I grew up with wood stoves, and love the smell, the look of the fire, and the unique heating that only comes from a wood fire.

I am looking at a wood stove from Tractor Supply Company, the Vogelzang Defender. It is on sale now for $509. It is rated for heating 1200 sqft 68,000 BTU. I know from lurking on here that the sqare footage and BTU estimations are often quite optimistic, so I'm hoping that a 1200 sqft stove will work well for this 750 sqft space. I'd rather have a stove I can run on "high" rather than a big one that I have to damper down. Plus, the price is good.

What do you guys think? Does anyone have any opinions on the stove? How about the size of the stove? Any other stove recommendations?

P.S. I know this is kind of silly, but the stove must be a "claw foot" stove. I absolutely love the look of a claw foot stove, as opposed to the pedestal types.

 

[begreen]

Most small stove will heat the space. The Englander 17VL is a nice model in this price range.

I wouldn't close off the forced air heating vents in this area. There's little to be gained and it may unbalance the system and race the blower.

 

[max384]

Most small stove will heat the space. The Englander 17VL is a nice model in this price range.

I wouldn't close off the forced air heating vents in this area. There's little to be gained and it may unbalance the system and race the blower.

Thank you for the reply.

If I don't close off the heating vents, how will I keep the room from being too hot? As it is, the basement is very warm with the existing heating system. If I add a wood stove without adjusting the heating, I'd be living in an oven.

 

[max384]

Well, I ended up buying the stove I mentioned in my OP. It was the floor model, so I got an extra 5% off (despite nothing being wrong with it), so I ended up paying $480 for it.



Don't worry, I won't be keeping it on carpet. Next step is tiling, then installing the stove.

 

[Ashful]

Looks nice. Is basement and first floor a single zone? Any returns in the basement?

 

[begreen]

Thank you for the reply.

If I don't close off the heating vents, how will I keep the room from being too hot? As it is, the basement is very warm with the existing heating system. If I add a wood stove without adjusting the heating, I'd be living in an oven.

How many vents feed the basement area and of what size? How many total in the house?
It sounds like the area doesn't need a wood stove. What will happen with the excess heat even with the furnace off?

 

[begreen]

Seems Ashful and I are thinking alike. Maybe running the furnace on fan mode only will help.

 

[max384]

Looks nice. Is basement and first floor a single zone? Any returns in the basement?

The entire house, basement and first floor, is one heating zone. There are several returns in the basement, both in the finished and unfinished areas.

 

[max384]

How many vents feed the basement area and of what size? How many total in the house?
It sounds like the area doesn't need a wood stove. What will happen with the excess heat even with the furnace off?

There are three vents that are about 8"x8" in the finished area. There are three 4"x10" in the unfinished area. There are about 15 4"x10" vents throughout the rest of the house.

My plan was that with closing the vents, there would be little to no excess heat.

If closing the vents won't work, what is the solution? Surely I can't be the first person to put a wood stove in a house that is already warm.

 

[Ashful]

I see two options, that will work without modifying your HVAC, and would experiment with both.

1. Leave all vents open, and put furnace fan on constant when running stove. This will help distribute excess heat from stove room throughout house, and furnace will run (or not run) accordingly.

2. Close supply vents as needed to achieve balance. Leave return un-molested, as this will still help whole-house circulation. If an oil-fired furnace, you can monitor over temp t'stat on furnace to see how closing vents affects furnace temp.

Best would be installation of zone dampers, to split basement off as its own zone, if practical. That's how we run our house.

 

[max384]

I see two options, that will work without modifying your HVAC, and would experiment with both.

1. Leave all vents open, and put furnace fan on constant when running stove. This will help distribute excess heat from stove room throughout house, and furnace will run (or not run) accordingly.

2. Close supply vents as needed to achieve balance. Leave return un-molested, as this will still help whole-house circulation. If an oil-fired furnace, you can monitor over temp t'stat on furnace to see how closing vents affects furnace temp.

Best would be installation of zone dampers, to split basement off as its own zone, if practical. That's how we run our house.

Thanks for the advice.

I'm a bit confused at the present moment, however. Maybe it's just a difference of opinion, but isn't option 1 what the other member warned against? And, if this is indeed bad to do, how is that any different than installing a zone damper, practically speaking. If an entire section of the heating system is closed with a damper, wouldn't that be basically the same as closing all the vents?

 

[begreen]

Option 1, running the furnace on fan only mode is fine. It will use some power to do this. Zoning so that the basement area has its own thermostat is the proper way to control the heat in one area vs another.

 

[lexybird]

I have a defender in my fireplace . It's a good little burner , I heat an area in my basement that's around 22 x20 , works great . Burns clean looks nice with its large door window and I get around 4-5 hours of burn time on a full load of hardwood . I put some hi temp aluminum tape over a couple of the air inlet holes to reduce the flames shooting and help secondary's . This stove has tons of air opening and that helped sealing some of it off and improve burn time

 

[Ashful]

Thanks for the advice.

I'm a bit confused at the present moment, however. Maybe it's just a difference of opinion, but isn't option 1 what the other member warned against? And, if this is indeed bad to do, how is that any different than installing a zone damper, practically speaking. If an entire section of the heating system is closed with a damper, wouldn't that be basically the same as closing all the vents?

"Can" be bad, not "is" bad. Depends on your furnace details and installation. For every furnace, there's a range of burn rates, and for each a minimum airflow requirement. As long as you're not hitting the over temp limit on a fuel-fired furnace, you're okay. If you do, then it's time to ask your service tech about reducing the burn rate, or improving ventilation to parts of house that aren't getting shut down.

Step 1, locate your furnaces over temp thermostat, so you can monitor it while closing off vents.

 

[Huntindog1]

Make sure you have good dry wood. I would buy a Moisture meter to check wood before you buy. Lowes has them.
20% or less is recommended. As these newer type stoves wont burn with high moisture wood. The stove you bought is a decent entry level stove at a good price but there is a learning curve to burning a secondary air stove. Try and get some wood in out of the weather to let it dry a little more before using it. I have like a staging area in my garage I keep like a few wheelbarrow loads.

 

[max384]

Thanks for all the posts guys. Sorry I didn't reply earlier. Work got real busy and this got pushed to the back burner.

"Can" be bad, not "is" bad. Depends on your furnace details and installation. For every furnace, there's a range of burn rates, and for each a minimum airflow requirement. As long as you're not hitting the over temp limit on a fuel-fired furnace, you're okay. If you do, then it's time to ask your service tech about reducing the burn rate, or improving ventilation to parts of house that aren't getting shut down.

Step 1, locate your furnaces over temp thermostat, so you can monitor it while closing off vents.

Thanks for the reply. I have a propane furnace. I don't know where this thermostat is located. Guess I'll have to pull out the manual and figure it out.

 

[max384]

Option 1, running the furnace on fan only mode is fine. It will use some power to do this. Zoning so that the basement area has its own thermostat is the proper way to control the heat in one area vs another.

I'm a bit confused as to how zoning an area is different than just shutting off all the vents to a particular area.

 

[max384]

I have a defender in my fireplace . It's a good little burner , I heat an area in my basement that's around 22 x20 , works great . Burns clean looks nice with its large door window and I get around 4-5 hours of burn time on a full load of hardwood . I put some hi temp aluminum tape over a couple of the air inlet holes to reduce the flames shooting and help secondary's . This stove has tons of air opening and that helped sealing some of it off and improve burn time

I'm glad to hear a positive review of this stove! Thanks for sharing, and for the tip.

 

[max384]

Make sure you have good dry wood. I would buy a Moisture meter to check wood before you buy. Lowes has them.
20% or less is recommended. As these newer type stoves wont burn with high moisture wood. The stove you bought is a decent entry level stove at a good price but there is a learning curve to burning a secondary air stove. Try and get some wood in out of the weather to let it dry a little more before using it. I have like a staging area in my garage I keep like a few wheelbarrow loads.

I have probably a half cord of wood or so left at my old house that has been seasoning for about a year and a half. I'll be transporting that to my new house (and don't worry, I'm not transporting wood to new places, and introducing pests. My new home is close to my old home)

 

[max384]

Well, now that it is actually getting colder and staying below freezing, I've noticed that my basement is actually way colder than I had first noticed when the temps weren't too bad... So maybe my concerns about overheating the basement will work themselves out, without any worries about shutting vents.