A new and exciting variation of the "wood stove in my basement" question

[[email protected]]

4 years ago we had a new oil furnace and radiant heat installed in our 1985 saltbox/colonial house. We love the warm floors but hate the oil bill (big surprise there...I know!).
We have an awesome, centrally located chimney with an older wood stove on the first floor. That wood stove located on the first floor is great for power outages but I've found that using it to supplement heat seems to throw off the radiant heat and it costs more for the system to regain temp. of the floor (thermal mass).

I posed the question to a local stove shop and they said using a convection style of wood stove in the basement would/could be the way to go and that the hot air would rise and help maintain temp. of the first floor and not throw off the radiant system. Does that sound feasible to any of you? (Currently the basement is not insulated) Or should I turn the thermostat down and spend the money on wool socks and mittens for the kids + jewelry for the wife?

[new info]
By "throws off the radiant heat" I mean this:
When the wood stove is used, it keeps the temp. of the first floor up (the thermostat never drops) so the furnace does not maintain the temperature of the radiant floor because it thinks it doesn't need to. When I stop using the wood stove the temperature drops fairly quickly and the furnace kicks in and seems to stay fired for long periods of time to get the floor/thermal mass back up to temperature.

 

[begreen]

Welcome T-bone. What do you mean by throwing off the radiant heat? Is it that other parts of the house where the stove is not close by are too cold?

 

[Jags]

I think the results that you are seeing when running the stove is the "nature of the beast". On the other hand, I think you will find that you are still getting a net gain from the stove. Yes, the furnace may have to run longer on the first cycle to heat the floor back up, but you have already heated the area for a given time without running the furnace (if that makes sense?).

A stove in the basement will probably act like you suspect by keeping the floors warm, your radiant heat will not have the "catch up" time that you are seeing with the first floor stove. On the down side, it is very possible that a stove in the basement (depends on layout) will not provide the quantity of heat to the first floor that you will need.

All things considered, I would consider what you are doing by running the stove on the main floor the "most correct" manor of using a wood stove for heat. And again, I will bet that you do end up with a net gain, even if the furnace has a little longer reclaim time when it fires up.

Wood stoves in an uninsulated basement don't have a real good track record. Some make it work, some don't.

 

[Wet1]

I would tend to agree with Jags. The other thing you might want to consider doing is insulating your basement...

 

[flyingcow]

Is your T-stat close to your stove? Could you relocate the t-stat? Just a thought.

 

[tkirk22]

Perhaps a wood fired boiler in the basement is an option??? That way you can heat the floors and save oil without running two stoves. There's a sticky in the boiler room on how to plumb such a setup.

 

[ScottF]

My radiant heat has a sensor in the floor in lieu of a thermostat. It can mount just below the floor. It keeps the floor the same temp irregardless of air temp. Maybe you can replace the thermostat with this. The floor would stay the same temp without any interference from the air temp due to the stove. We have a control that we can change the indicator temp set point . We leave it the same setting all winter but have to adjust it in the spring and fall a little.

 

[smokinj]

Stove in the basment should do the trick

 

[FireWalker]

You have just described exactly the condition in my home. Central wood stove chimney with service to basement ceiling, oil boiler (on seperate chimney) with radiant floor on entire 1st floor. I have the same problems, when running wood stove, the thermostat is "not calling" thus the floors get cold. In my house this is not a problem because we are saving $$$$$ although it's a shame because when the floor is warm it feels great barefoot. For this reason I considered a wood gasification boiler in the basement but found the price to be to much to swallow ($8-$10,000 installed).

You should consider moving the thermostat for your boiler far away from your wood heat source thus allowing both heaters to work in harmony. It only takes a few burns per 24 hours to heat up the hot floor and keep things warm assuming your floor is well insulated. I did this and for last heating season I only used 250 gallons of oil and 5 cord of wood.

 

[[email protected]]

Wow! I am SOOO glad I posted this question. For all of you who prefer to have your wood tiered up in a nice neat fashion...here are my initial responses and likely actions:

1. I did think of moving the thermostat to an office room on the first floor, then keep the door closed when running the wood stove.
[thanks flyingcow]

[Thanks to you too FireWalker, good to know the likely scenarios]

2. I did not know you could have temp sensors in the floor to control the heating!! That makes sense and totally rocks, I'm going to check into that.
[nice work ScottF]

3. I was discussing the dilemma with a coworker who suggested the potential of tying in a wood fired boiler to the basement system. I can't believe I never thought of that!
[cheers Kirk22 you may be on to something]

::::::::::::::::::::::::
I'll get back later with a progress report.
Time to investigate the $ouchie of the wood fired boiler scenario as well as consider the floor temp. sensor scenario and use the existing stove to supplement as the fallback plan if the boiler option is just not feasible.

Thanks all!
~ T-Bone

 

[FireWalker]

Here is the least expensive wood boiler I found that has been built now for over 30 years but is not very high tech/lower efficiency. Make sure you are looking at models that take advantage of your existing heating system components i.e. the wood heated water runs thru your existing boiler.

(broken link removed to http://www.thermocontrolheating.com/model2000.htm)

There are many others on the market, search Google for "wood gasification boiler".

 

[begreen]

If you decide to go the boiler route, switch questions in a new thread to the boiler room forum hear at Hearth.com. You'll get some good advice there.