Help the new guy....

[Big_Red]

Hello everyone! I am hoping to find some answers from those in the know! My wife and I are currently in escrow on a home here in south east Idaho it is our first, and we are a little nervous. The home was built in 1951, it has new windows and new insulation, amazingly the original hard wood floors under the 70's shag carpet is perfect! A little polish and they will look brand new!! It also has an oil furnace from the 60's that is circulated by what appears to be a newer forced air system, at least the ducting looks new.. Admittedly, this being my first house and growing up in California never having to experience cold winters I did not know what "oil furnace" really meant.

As part of closing the sellers agreed to have the furnace inspected and any repairs/maintenance done before closing.

I thought this was good until I got a quote for filling the tank....Lets just say once my breath came back I quietly thanked the sales person on the phone for his time and told him I needed to discuss things with my wife.

So needless to say I am looking for alternate heating sources for my home that will be more efficient. The house does have a traditional fireplace, open brick with a decorative metal panel on the front with glass doors, it is located in the basement. There is no fire place upstairs. The plan is to replace the furnace with natural gas in the next year or two, depending on cost.

As I see it I can put an insert in the basement, that will only heat the basement though as I have read that wood heat sources in the basement are not efficient for the whole house. Or I can put a wood stove up stairs try and tie it in with my existing chimney and take advantage of the forced air system and use that to circulate the warm air? Or I can bite the bullet, drop a 100 gallons of fuel into the tank set the thermostat at 60 and get some space heaters....I am a but unsure what to do at this point. All my options seem expensive.

A little more info about the house. Upstairs is about 1200 square feet, the basement is about 1000 square feet. The basement is about 40% finished, it has a large finished family room, and we have plans to turn the rest of the space into storage, a bathroom and an office. The ducting is running through the whole basement. All the bedrooms are upstairs, the large front room upstairs is going to be a formal sitting area and dining room, with the family room down stairs being where we anticipate to play!

Thanks for any suggestions guys!!

 

[jrems]

Sound just line my house I bought last year. Built in the 50s, new windows, nice hardwood under the shag(hardwood was super dirty- I used a mr.sandless franchise to clean and seal it and it looks great)
ideal would be to install the wood stove upstairs. You can go though the wall and tap into the chimney. There should be two separate flues inside the chimney. One for the oil and one for the fireplace. I have seen some old houses with a shared flue which would pose problems for install of a wood stove.

 

[bholler]

If you are putting it upstairs i would say you would be better off just puting in a prefab class a chimney. Buy the time you go through the wall with an insulated pass thru and line the chimney you will probably be close to the price of a prefab. But there is also no reason that an insert in the basement couldn't help allot with the heat But you will need a liner there to. And btw i doubt 100 gallons will do it for the winter

 

[tarzan]

An EPA approved wood stove or insert and installation is going to result in sticker shock also. The money you save will depend on your source of good, dry wood over the next several years.

 

[homebrewz]

You probably won't get much benefit from a radiant heating source in a partially finished basement. Assuming you have uninsulated concrete block walls, much of the heat will be absorbed by the walls and radiated outward rather than upward.

Whatever you do, if you are planning on wood heat, start gathering your wood supply now and read some of the threads on seasoned wood.

I hope it works out for you.

 

[Big_Red]

Thanks guys. I am looking at pellet stoves right now. I like the apparent any cleaner operation.

Next winter we will put in a natural gas furnace, but we want to have the pellet stove in the basement. Can a stove be integrated into an existing fireplace? It seems like it would be less expensive than the insert + chimney lining. My guess I would need to brick up the current opening and them put a hole through the chimney and pipe the stove into it?

As far as the insulation in the basement, the finished walls are insulated, and concrete wall that is part of the basent foundation and the big living room was framed and insulated before the sheeteock was hung, so I am not too worried about loss of hear to the foundation.

A.

 

[Ram 1500 with an axe...]

If you are putting it upstairs i would say you would be better off just puting in a prefab class a chimney. Buy the time you go through the wall with an insulated pass thru and line the chimney you will probably be close to the price of a prefab. But there is also no reason that an insert in the basement couldn't help allot with the heat But you will need a liner there to. And btw i doubt 100 gallons will do it for the winter

Maybe he meant 1000...