Newbie Questions / Advice

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Andy_CT

New Member
Nov 19, 2011
10
CT, USA
Hi all,

Excuse my questions if they are truly silly but would like to get a view of what's possible and not with Wood Stoves/Inserts as i'm on the fence with my house.

Basically I was central air with furnace AND radiant heating in two zones. I have a heat/air exchange / circulator in the ceiling of my basement. I have three floors - the basement which has the furnace (oil), main floor (zone 1) and top floor (zone 2). Each floor has about 15ft ceilings. The duct work goes all over the house from my existing system, including one half of the finished part of my basement. I'm unsure that the basement ducts do a lot - doesn't seem to heat for example more so placeholders perhaps.

So to my questions. Today I have a lovely $2500 ish oil bill and we are very non-wasteful as a house. I've insulated all the heating pipes in the basement to keep the water nice and toasty but now i'm thinking heat.

On my main floor which is ALL open plan (and almost S shaped) I have a fireplace in one end of the S with a Fireplace Blower (Cozy grate). This does nothing for the floor other than heat the one room to an excessive temp and the rest of the floor is cold when using this. I live in the woods and have a LOT of wood at my disposal. I'm contemplating two options and don't know if they are worth it.

1. The basement. The house is built with an outlet for a stove in the basement. I don't use my basement (yet) but I assume a stove wouldn't do too much for my 2nd floor / living room etc? (I might be wrong). All in all the two floors would be around 2500 square ft and have high ceilings. If my assumption that running a stove in the basement wouldn't keep my 2nd floor toasty is correct, is it possible to some how hook the heat from the stove and use the fans or circulator from my AC etc and circulate the hot air easily? I don't want to get rid of the oil furnace, more so use the fans that blow air around the house. Not sure if that's possible? Assuming i'd need to mod something.

2. The 2nd floor. Like I said, I have a cozy grate blower which warms one smallish room and AC / heat vents all over the floor. Bearing in mind my floor plan is open, has a further exposure where the staircase goes up (nearly 40ft), would an insert do anything more than a fireplace blower? I don't want to spend the money again buying something that wouldn't at LEAST heat my 2nd floor from the 'zig-zagd' floor plan. The 'cozy grate' claimed to be 40,000btu but doesn't heat 5ft out of the room the fireplace is in.

Hope my questions make sense, basically just don't want to run out and buy something that's not going to benefit. I'm trying to reduce the oil use, MOSTLY use the 2nd floor and would be extra awesome if I would heat up to the 3rd without making massive change.

Thx!

Andy
 
Welcome Andy. It sounds like you have multiple issues. The first being that the forced air heating system is either incorrectly designed, incorrectly installed or has a defect. I have seen numerous cases of this where the system was added on to and has ridiculously long runs or inadequate duct sizing. The first thing to look for is openings or pipes that have become disconnected. In my neighbor's house we found one duct lying on the ground in the crawl space. An elbow had fallen apart. Another possibility is that a damper motor is stuck and not opening. Have some one turn up the thermostat for this zone while you watch the damper motor. If it doesn't actuate, there will be no heat in that zone.

For the wood heat, it sounds like ceiling fans would help. Heat will stratify high at the ceiling level without something to mix it up. A ceiling fan running in reverse in the winter can help with this. For the small room, try this trick. Take a table or box fan, set it on the floor outside of the fireplace room, but pointed into the room and run the fan on low speed. You will be blowing cooler air into the room. This will draw warm air out of the top of the doorway, into the cooler house area.

We'd need a floorplan, but it sounds like the ideal solution to your heating woes is either to install a wood furnace add-on in the basement (after the poor furnace heating issues are resolved) or to put a good woodstove, central in the open area of the house. My choice would be for the stove because that way you get a nice fireview and the wonderful radiant heat from the stove as well as a nice overall increase in comfort. Given the size of the house I think you will need a 3 cu ft stove. Putting in an insert in the little room would probably not be satisfying. The room will continue to be too hot, even with the fan trick mentioned above.
 
Hey!

Thanks for the quick reply. Yeah it's pretty much stumped me to be honest. Pictures might help explain better like you suggest. Here's the floor plan.

Floor plan floor two:

You'll notice on the far right is where my fireplace is. That's the one with the cozy grate (heats that room ONLY) which is kind of annoying as we sit in the living room. So to that, my question would be - would any 'insert' be able to heat at least this floor without fans and not create a warm family room with the rest freezing. My air/central air system has a fan option but I don't know if that just blows cold air through the grates. There's no ceiling fans on the 2nd floor.

Basement (pic):

Here you see where the guy that built it left space for a furnace in the basement. Above you can see the duct coming from the handler and that goes to zone 1 & zone 2 with the oil heating. To the far right you can see where the oil boiler room is. The other part of the basement is finished with vents but not sure if they even work. Here i'm trying to establish if it's possible to route the heat (somehow) from a wood furnace below maybe into the handler / duct and just use the fan switch perhaps? I'm lame when it comes to these things but hopefully the picture will make it more understandable? not sure if that's a good idea as I assume if I put one down there it would be of no use for floor 2 without routing it in a duct?

Either way i'd like to see if a solution to cut down on oil without setting up electric fans everywhere (CT is pretty pricey for that!) and wondering if i'm wasting my time :)

Appreciate your thoughts.

Andy
 

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Try the fan trick I mentioned before. Place it in the living room, pointed directly into the stove room. That will get the heat moving into the livingroom and will cool down the family room. (location in blue). No, I don't think any insert will solve this issue, though it would be much more efficient and cleaner burning so that you would use much less wood. Is this fireplace masonry or is it a zero-clearance unit? If it is ZC then it could be replaced with a modern unit that has provisions for ducting out the heat. That would solve a lot of the heat distribution issue.

Basement heating is not going to help much here. A stove is an area heater. One placed in the LR would make a big difference. Ideal location would be at A on the plan. Location B would be my second choice. I would also definitely put in a ceiling fan.

PS: Where is that basement chimney located on the plan? Maybe it could be tapped on the 1st floor.
 

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Hey thanks again,

Damn I thought that might be the case - very glad I asked. I was kind of hoping it would chuck so much heat out it'd magically float from room to room but just thinking things out, it's more or less going to do the same isn't it? :( I took a picture from where you put "A" to show the fire place and the half wall. I believe it's masonry - it has the fireproof bricks etc, can take a better pic if need be. Maybe I could get something small behind the half wall to shoot at it. Today it pumps opposite the FP and warms up to the divide between the family room and the living room.

In your opinion, he's built that feature purely as ambiance and not for real heating right?

The basement chimney runs the side of the basement stairs (next to the toilet there to the left of A. It runs behind the FP too into family room. In the fireplace has one of those dust shoots which goes down to the bottom of the basement so it's kind of multi-faced. The breast runs to the right of the stairs and the left of the FP.

Dang, with the basement too. So with the stoves, there's nothing I can really use to funnel into the ducts / handler, or is it all like you say - just to heat a space? :(

Andy
 

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Hi Andy, welcome to the forums !


A better pic of the interior of the FP, and maybe an upwards shot of the flue would help.


Is the upstairs roughly the same layout?


I agree with BG that a free standing stove in the living room is going to give you the most bang for your buck, Located near the stairs (I assume they are spiral?) would be really excellent gravy ;-)


Are there 1/2 walls in the dining room, as well?
 
Doing The Dixie Eyed Hustle said:
Hi Andy, welcome to the forums !


A better pic of the interior of the FP, and maybe an upwards shot of the flue would help.


Is the upstairs roughly the same layout?


I agree with BG that a free standing stove in the living room is going to give you the most bang for your buck, Located near the stairs (I assume they are spiral?) would be really excellent gravy ;-)


Are there 1/2 walls in the dining room, as well?

Tx! Hopefully the two I've posts gives a better idea. Upstairs is same layout but to be honest i'm not THAT bothered about the upstairs, it's really just the living room as I work from home quite a bit. Yes stairs are spiral.

B is basically where my sofas/ tv etc is and to the left is my front deck. The chimney is literally where the basement stairs are and to the back of the fireplace. I don't really see place to install a fireplace on B, A maybe but would kind of be the first thing you see when walking in the front door. I was hoping to make use of the fireplace(FP) / not doing any drastic modifications to the walls etc :)
 
So me again - i'm clearly not taking no or fans for an answer ;-)

One more question - when a stove says it can heat say 2000 sq ft, that's on the assumption that's it's centrally placed and there's ceiling fans? I'd ideally not want to run fans, more so leave the fireplace insert/stove with fans (call it what you will - example http://vermontcastings.com/family/Fireplaces/Wood-Burning/Merrimack/) burning all winter but I really don't want to shell out if it's not going to heat. Just interested in the claims of what they're meant to do (it's keeping my hope alive). I'm giving up on the basement for the time being.

To reiterate, my fireplace is where the FP is indicated on the floor plan, I have today a cheap ass fan blower (cozy grate - this thing http://www.woodlanddirect.com/Firep...e-Heaters-Blowers/Cozy-Grate-Fireplace-Heater) which i'm not totally sold on so wondering if a 'proper' fireplace would help heat the living room and perhaps the rest of the floor. Basically I'm guessing there aren't a lot of people who have the cozy grate but trying to work out if the investment would really do more than heating the one room (I suspect it would).

Not to discredit any help I've had thus far, wondering if I should get anyone in to look or give up and shut up :D
 
FNM said:
So me again - i'm clearly not taking no or fans for an answer ;-)

One more question - when a stove says it can heat say 2000 sq ft, that's on the assumption that's it's centrally placed and there's ceiling fans? I'd ideally not want to run fans, more so leave the fireplace insert/stove with fans (call it what you will - example http://vermontcastings.com/family/Fireplaces/Wood-Burning/Merrimack/) burning all winter but I really don't want to shell out if it's not going to heat. Just interested in the claims of what they're meant to do (it's keeping my hope alive). I'm giving up on the basement for the time being.

To reiterate, my fireplace is where the FP is indicated on the floor plan, I have today a cheap ass fan blower (cozy grate - this thing http://www.woodlanddirect.com/Firep...e-Heaters-Blowers/Cozy-Grate-Fireplace-Heater) which i'm not totally sold on so wondering if a 'proper' fireplace would help heat the living room and perhaps the rest of the floor. Basically I'm guessing there aren't a lot of people who have the cozy grate but trying to work out if the investment would really do more than heating the one room (I suspect it would).

Not to discredit any help I've had thus far, wondering if I should get anyone in to look or give up and shut up :D


When I bought my house, it had an open fireplace with one of those in it. It was old then, and was making racket and I think it had a hole somewhere in the heat exchanger.....however, it did put out a fair amount of heat. It's better than an open fireplace with a standard grate, but FAR from ideal.


Now that I have an insert, there's no comparison. Even with a cozy grate, an open fireplace gobbles wood like a hungry dog. These modern "EPA" stoves burn wood like a miser and put out tons of heat. Seriously, it's like trading in a Model T for a Corvette!

I wish I'd done the insert 10 years ago.
 
FNM said:
So me again - i'm clearly not taking no or fans for an answer ;-)

One more question - when a stove says it can heat say 2000 sq ft, that's on the assumption that's it's centrally placed and there's ceiling fans? I'd ideally not want to run fans, more so leave the fireplace insert/stove with fans (call it what you will - example http://vermontcastings.com/family/Fireplaces/Wood-Burning/Merrimack/) burning all winter but I really don't want to shell out if it's not going to heat. Just interested in the claims of what they're meant to do (it's keeping my hope alive). I'm giving up on the basement for the time being.

To reiterate, my fireplace is where the FP is indicated on the floor plan, I have today a cheap ass fan blower (cozy grate - this thing http://www.woodlanddirect.com/Firep...e-Heaters-Blowers/Cozy-Grate-Fireplace-Heater) which i'm not totally sold on so wondering if a 'proper' fireplace would help heat the living room and perhaps the rest of the floor. Basically I'm guessing there aren't a lot of people who have the cozy grate but trying to work out if the investment would really do more than heating the one room (I suspect it would).

Not to discredit any help I've had thus far, wondering if I should get anyone in to look or give up and shut up :D

Not sure what to make of that response. Are you saying you won't try a fan to see how it work? If so, you will remain with a hot room and a cold house I think.

Stove ratings can be all over the map from reasonably close to wildly optimistic. You are much better off to consider the firebox size and quality of the stove than to follow marketing. There are too many variables. The sq ftg a stove can heat will vary depending on the outside temps, climate, stove location, wood burned, operator, etc.
 
When I bought my house, it had an open fireplace with one of those in it. It was old then, and was making racket and I think it had a hole somewhere in the heat exchanger.....however, it did put out a fair amount of heat. It's better than an open fireplace with a standard grate, but FAR from ideal.


Now that I have an insert, there's no comparison. Even with a cozy grate, an open fireplace gobbles wood like a hungry dog. These modern "EPA" stoves burn wood like a miser and put out tons of heat. Seriously, it's like trading in a Model T for a Corvette!

I wish I'd done the insert 10 years ago.

Thanks. Yeah i'm not best impressed myself. I agree, it takes heat out but it's certainly far from elegant! It's just the shape of my floor plan worries me to the effectiveness not being in the middle etc to heat the whole floor.

Not sure what to make of that response. Are you saying you won't try a fan to see how it work? If so, you will remain with a hot room and a cold house I think.

Stove ratings can be all over the map from reasonably close to wildly optimistic. You are much better off to consider the firebox size and quality of the stove than to follow marketing. There are too many variables. The sq ftg a stove can heat will vary depending on the outside temps, climate, stove location, wood burned, operator, etc.

no no, just trying to work out what the claims mean and what's possible, sorry to be unclear. Was paranoid I wasn't explaining things well too. Ideally I wouldn't want a fan running all the time in front of that room but it'll make an interesting experiment I think, def worth a shot. I'm really just on a fact finding mission too, don't know a lot about them (first real fire place owned) and sadly most of my neighbors have oil only so it's hard to get an decent opinion round here so much appreciate yours!
 
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