Heating a split level ranch with pellet stoves

[Sing]

Hello all. I have used a pellet stove for years in a doublewide I had. Two years ago I bought a new split level ranch that had oil baseboard heating and two wood fire places. One in basement and one in living room, they are on top of each other.

The first thign we did was instal a Quad Mt Vernon insert in the upstairs fire place, and with some effort, it heats the 1100 sq ft upstairs. More on that in a bit.

We gutted the basement so it is now all open. 1100 sq ft of open floor basement. I wanted to cut back on the fuel oil even more by putting a pellet stove in the basement. I figure I would keep it at about 50 degrees or so to keep the pipes and stuff from freezing, and the fuel oil would not have to do that job any longer.

The problem is back upstairs. The upstairs is not an open floor plan. The pellet stove heats the connected living room and kitchen, but there is a hall way leading to the back bedrooms and bathroom. Without the aid of two circulating fans that blows the heat down the halll and at the ceiling and than back down the hall at the floor, the back of the house gets really cold. As long as the fans are running and the doors are open to the bedrooms, they stay warm enough most of the time. The bathroom however gets pretty cold to be in your birthday suite. Often we have to bump the furnace on to heat the Bathroom up while we shower.

The Mt vernon is a 60k btu Pellet stove. The Basement is a 50k btu heatilater CAB50. Between the two, we have enough capacity I am told to heat 5000 sq ft of space with ease. Sounds great. I only need to heat 2200. This will be the first year for the CAB50 in the basement, and I assume it will heat it just fine. But that does not really correct anything with the upstairs. We have heated with the Mt Vernon for two winters and we get away with it. But it can be uncomfortable at times. The fans went a long way towards helping, as before the fans the bedrooms were out right cold. But they are loud and run 24/7 and the bathroom is sitll an issue.

How can we leverage the pellet stoves better? I figured that the pellet stove in the basement could go a long way toward helping the back of the house, being an open space. Maybe a few registers. But I have read on here how that does not seem to work out well. How can we leverage the capacity we have better? We have 2k in the Cab50 and 5.5k in the Mt Vernon and 110000 btu's available. We should not be struggling here. But we are.

Someone will be asking about insulation. The basement is not insulated. And the insulation in the 2x4 walls is questionable. The roof insulation is,,,, ok. Ish. And the main windows in the basement (2 5'x10') and the window in the living room (5'x10') are not exactly heat resistive. Single pain with storm windows. So Insulation is a real issue. however, The hose needs serious renovations before the insulation can be addressed. I had an energy audit and they suggested insulating the basement and the roof and upgrading windows. I know all of this. But like I said, the house will be undergoing HUGE renovations over the next 10 years. There is little point in insulating only to have to tear it out and redue it. What I am trying to do is leverage the capacity we have already, which honestly should be enough to keep a pole barn at 24x24 pole barn at 90 degrees, to do a better job. We are not freezing out of the house. But the back bed rooms and bathrooms could use some help, and the fans are loud and would be nice to get rid of. What to do,,, what to do.

 

[JDenyer236]

You are struggling mainly due the location of your second heater which is in the basement. I assume uninsulated concrete walls? If so then all that concrete is gonna suck up a lot of heat. I don't think you have a shortage of BTU's but rather a lack of a way to move those BTU's around. Registers between floors may help but they are often against fire codes as they help fire spread faster from floor to floor. Do you have ceiling fans? If not could you add one or two to help move the air around? On low they are whisper quite and can move a lot of air around.

 

[Sing]

You are struggling mainly due the location of your second heater which is in the basement. I assume uninsulated concrete walls? If so then all that concrete is gonna suck up a lot of heat. I don't think you have a shortage of BTU's but rather a lack of a way to move those BTU's around. Registers between floors may help but they are often against fire codes as they help fire spread faster from floor to floor. Do you have ceiling fans? If not could you add one or two to help move the air around? On low they are whisper quite and can move a lot of air around.

I totally understand what you are saying. As I said, yes the basement is not insulated. But I only need to keep it at like 50. The ambient temperature in the winter typically never gets down below 40. But as our laundry is down there, 50 is a bit nicer. I know the pellet stove will do what I need it to do in the basement. After all t he Fule Oil baseboard have done it since 1962. What I was asking was for some ideas on how to leverage the capacity that we have better. Like you said, its not a matter so much of not having enough btu's, is moving it around. Or is the general consensus that I need to scrap the pellet stoves and invest in a new furnace. I priced out a new propane furnace (NG not available) with new baseboard and its going to be upwards of 15k-18k. I don't have that kind of cabbage right now. So I was trying to figure out how to best use what we do have.

EDIT: BTW I do have two ceiling fans, one in the kitchen and one in the living room. But they don't seem to do much to push the hot air down the hall to the back bedrooms. Our floor layout is 24x44. Half of the house is the kitchen and livign room, with a hall running out of that space right down the middle to two back bedrooms. There are rooms on either side of the hall way, the bathroom being one. We put a wall mounted corner fan at the ceiling to blow air down the hall, and a fan sits on the floor to blow the air back. In that way it actually convects well enough to keep the bed rooms warm enough. They were actually cold before this. But they don't seem to circulate air into the bathroom which off the side of the hall. The bed rooms are directly at the end of the all, and I assume thats why they take in some heat.

Maybe the CAB50 should have been some kind of pellet furnace with one duct running to the back bedroom and bath room, and a return duct coming out of the kitchen.

 

[JDenyer236]

No I didn't mean that you should get rid of the pellet stoves, we just need to get a little creative in moving those btu's around. Have you tried reversing your ceiling fans, this can make a huge difference. The fans when running in reverse will pick up the warm air and bounce it off the ceiling sending it to the floor. Try keeping your basement warmer, ie 70-75 degrees, heat rises and will warm the floors to some extent and make it easier for the pellet stove on the first floor to keep up. Don't turn your thermostats up and down, keep a nice steady temperature. When your turn your thermostats down not only does the air cool off, but the thermal mass of the house cools off. It takes a lot of energy to warm up all that thermal mass. I wouldn't go with propane unless you can get a really good deal for propane prices. Fuel oil has 144,000 btus per gallon, propane about 96,000 btus per gallon. Propane is often priced similar to oil so you end up paying the same for less heat. Natural gas can be a lot cheaper depending on location and pipeline capacity.

 

[Tim Linden]

If you have the downstairs set to 50 then technically you arent generating all those BTUs. I might try setting it to 70 amd see if that doesnt solve it. The exrra heat may rose enougj for you.

 

[Sing]

No I didn't mean that you should get rid of the pellet stoves, we just need to get a little creative in moving those btu's around. Have you tried reversing your ceiling fans, this can make a huge difference. The fans when running in reverse will pick up the warm air and bounce it off the ceiling sending it to the floor. Try keeping your basement warmer, ie 70-75 degrees, heat rises and will warm the floors to some extent and make it easier for the pellet stove on the first floor to keep up. Don't turn your thermostats up and down, keep a nice steady temperature. When your turn your thermostats down not only does the air cool off, but the thermal mass of the house cools off. It takes a lot of energy to warm up all that thermal mass. I wouldn't go with propane unless you can get a really good deal for propane prices. Fuel oil has 144,000 btus per gallon, propane about 96,000 btus per gallon. Propane is often priced similar to oil so you end up paying the same for less heat. Natural gas can be a lot cheaper depending on location and pipeline capacity.

Again, I have to fully agree with you, especially on the Propane. The 15-18 k cost of a new boiler system and baseboard was not the only consideration. Propane is indeed exspensive. I bounced around the idea of a pellet furnace, like the USSC Model 8500. But than I was afraid that would restrict how effectivly I could heat the basement with the bulk of the air going upstairs. And then there is the differential in the basement temp vs the upstairs temp and how to control that differential. Ultimatly I went with the CAB50, wich is just a large hopper Pellet stove. I have been considering keeping the basement hotter, like in the 70 degree range. But, again the basement is not insulated and I fear that raising the temp too far above the ampient temperature of the celler will simply result in a lot of heat going into heating the ground. If I could figure out a way to get the 70 degree air to travel up into the house, or more specifically the back beed rooms and the bathroom, I would not mind so much with essentially wasting pellets. At least I would be getting some benefit. But I keep reading that floor vents don't work. Last year I keept the basement at 45 degrees, and we burned about 1000k in fuel oil. I figure if I keep the air at 50, maybe 55, the floors upstairs at least will be a bit warmer, and it will cost me probably half what the fuel oil was. I just wish I could figure out how to better distrubute the heat. My only other idea was to buy a small pellet stove for the bedroom. But in a house with a main living space of 1100 sq feet, more stoves is getting WAY out of hand. It just goes to show that I am not heating efficiently. Throwing more stoves at the problem seems unreasonable to me. But i am starting to wonder If I have not gone in the wrong direction with the pellet stoves. I am starting to think that what I want simply can't be done with what I have. Which sucks because we have a lot of money tied up in the pellet stoves,,, and I do really like them. LOVE pellet stoves.

EDIT: BTW, I have reversed my fans. It does a great job circulating the air in the room the fan is in. But again, does very little to push air down the hall to the back bed rooms. There is no transum between the hall way and the living room kitchen area. That is a big help. There is a bout a 4 inch space above the door into the bathroom that probably keeps heat from flowing in that way. My other idea was to get still a third fan and blow it into the bathroom. But the two fans are already too loud. They don't seem like much until you lay down to sleep at night. They grate on you and by spring its a reliefe to shut them off.

 

[JDenyer236]

It's a tough one with your layout. Just so you know pellet stoves cannot be installed in sleeping areas like bedrooms. While it is true that you are gonna burn more pellets to keep the basement at 70, you are not going to get enough btus out of the basement stove by keeping it at 50. I think your fan idea is a good one, your just gonna have to try and find some fans that are quite. Just out of curiosity why are you heating the basement? Here in Maine my basement never gets colder than 40 and that is with the oil boiler shut off all winter. Basement walls are uninsulated as well. Anyways, don't give up. I'm sure others on here can give you other ideas you may try. Good luck.

 

[Sing]

It's a tough one with your layout. Just so you know pellet stoves cannot be installed in sleeping areas like bedrooms. While it is true that you are gonna burn more pellets to keep the basement at 70, you are not going to get enough btus out of the basement stove by keeping it at 50. I think your fan idea is a good one, your just gonna have to try and find some fans that are quite. Just out of curiosity why are you heating the basement? Here in Maine my basement never gets colder than 40 and that is with the oil boiler shut off all winter. Basement walls are uninsulated as well. Anyways, don't give up. I'm sure others on here can give you other ideas you may try. Good luck.

The laundry is in the basement, and the wife does not like doing laundry in 40 degree weather. It's a good question though. Sometimes I wonder if the gain is worth the cost of heating it at all. I was not aware that you could not put a pellet stove in a bedroom. I mean to say, they make wall mounted units and window units and otherwise very small floor models. Seems like a bed room would be the ideal place to use these small units. Non the less, I won't be buying a third stove.

What I was hoping was that if I put a floor vent in the kitchen, which is right near the stove, That the hot air would rise and fall though a floor vent in the bed room, causing a natural convection, and possibly dragging some of the upstairs heat along with it which would get rid of the need for fans. But I think I might be pipe dreaming. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

 

[JDenyer236]

Yeah it's against national fire codes to install pellet or wood stoves in sleeping areas. Your floor vent will only work if there is a way for the cold air to return. You will have to check with your town to see if the floor vent would be allowed. Lots of localities now ban that practice as it allows fire to spread through the house much faster. Keep in mind that without a way for cold air to return from the upstairs very little if any heat can rise to the upstairs.

 

[twodogs02]

We spray foamed our basement walls and sill plate, made a huge difference. If you can frame the walls and pull electric prior to foaming that's what I would do. We keep our basement at 74 degrees. Pellet stove is on north end of house with bedrooms on south end, ranch log home. North side is heated to 78 which keeps the south side a nice 72 degrees. When it's really cold out 10 degrees or less, we supplement south side with radiant baseboards from the propane boiler. Cut my propane bill by $2,000 first year with Harman XXV stove, spray foam basement and garage ceiling which is under living space on north end. Spray foam isn't cheap but it was what we needed as we are heating 2,600 sq ft upstairs and another 1,200 down.

Next year we will add another stove on the south side and run the boiler for DHW only. I burn 4 or 5 tons per year, less than $1,500 in pellets/yr and we are warmer than we've ever been since we've increased the temperature in the basement.

 

[Wilbur Feral]

So, the hard truth is that you are not going to solve this problem with pellet stoves. You have plenty of BTUs, but pellet stoves are space heaters. When you restrict that space with walls and doors, you restrict air flow and that's what moves almost all heat from a stove. I have tried capturing heat from a basement stove via registers, addding in-duct fans, etc. It just doesn't work. What has had some success is leaving the door to the basement open so that heat will rise up the stairs, but if you keep it at 50 that's not going to work. As someone noted, try it at 70-75 some weekend and see what effect that has on your problem. I have a stove in basement and another on main floor, and a reasonably open plan. But the bedrooms and baths still get cool, although not as much as yours, it seems.

For the bathrooms, if you are going to renovate them I would consider infloor radiant heat. Can be done at relatively low cost using electric mat type under tile (insulate under the floor!), heats a bathroom nicely, and feels luxuriously good. For bedrooms, you may find a small space heater helps, at a lower cost than trying to move heat from one end of the house to another, if you can purchase very safe models.

 

[Caleb Joens]

Here is my 2 cents. I have a pellet stove in my finished basement which has an open stairwell to the upstairs great room and bedrooms. When I started running it I was quite disappointed in the heat transfer to the upstairs rooms. Sounds similar to your situation. After many attempts I have got the heat to transfer at an acceptable level, although the bedrooms are still 8 degrees cooler. Here are my tips, take them for what they are worth.

I had a ceiling fan running in the great room, I tried both forward and reverse neither worked. Once I shut it off the heat started flowing. I think the fan was making air turbulence traping the heat at the stairwell. Think of the air curtains when you walk in a store.

For the hallway to the bedrooms, only move the cold out and never the hot in. The cold is much more dense and moves better. Once you blow the hot you just create a loop or too much turbulence for the heat to properly move. Also, only run the fans on low, you don't have to move much air to keep it warm and you want flow not force. Turbulence is the enemy. I ended up with a box fan on a baby gate (needed the baby gate anyway ) blowing the cold air out on lowest setting.

I hung a peice of toilet paper in the doorways to visualize air flow. Play with stuff and try to get the air moving.

One thing is true, if you're basement is at 50 and upstairs is warmer the basement air is not going anywhere.

 

[fmsm]

Are your ceilings finished in the basement? Why not create your own forced hot air system?

Simply have a plenum made up and run some ducts with a return or two

 

[Bridgeman]

I have the same layout upstairs and the living/kitchen area is a 73 and the master bath is 68. Is that the kind of difference you have?
Is there a door between the basement and the upstairs? Does the front room have cathedral ceilings? If so, what is the ceiling pitch? What direction do you blow the air from the ceiling fans? You may be fighting the natural convection with all those fans.