How much loss from installing stove in basement?

[Wet1]

I know there are tons of threads about heating the main floor of the house with a wood stove in the basement (and it's generally considered a poor choice), but I'm wondering just how much heat loss there really is? Since I can generally get wood for free (other than my labor, time, and transportation fuel cost) and our wood stove must be located in the basement, if I want to burn wood it has to be in our mostly finished basement. The walls are insulated with R13 and the concrete floors are covered with padding and carpet, the stove is about 10' to 12' from the staircase and I will probably be adding a cold air return vent to aid the convection.

Anyway, I was screwing around plugging some numbers into the fuel comparison calculator and I'm not really sure what I should use for efficiency since there's obviously a significant heat loss when installing the stove in the basement. If the stove is say 80% efficient on its own, does anyone have any idea how much additional loss I should add in the calculator for the stove being installed in an insulated basement??? I know this refers to the stove efficiency, but I'm trying to add in some loss due to the basement install to get some rough numbers. Obviously all configurations are going to different, but I was just looking for some ballpark guesses based on my info...

 

[Adios Pantalones]

If you have the cash, look into wood-fired boilers. You can have wood-fired central heat, but it will cost you. There is a hearth.com forum for it.

Sorry this doesn't answer the question, others may chime in with anecdote about success in this matter.

 

[begreen]

Link to original posting:
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/20324/

Your situation is improved by having an insulated basement. Heat losses can be really significant in an uninsulated one. I think I read that as much a 1/3 the capacity of the stove can be wasted heating outside the basement walls in an uninsulated basement.

Figure the stove at 70% efficiency for a more accurate estimate. But this is stove efficiency, not building heat transfer efficiency. If the stairway to the basement is central, open and large, and the stove is close to it, then you can get pretty good heating of the floor above it if that floor has an open floor plan. If there is a story above that, not so good. As you can see, there are a lot of ifs.

 

[Wet1]

Thanks Adios, but I'm not ready to make that big jump at this point. I burned wood years ago and got away from it when I bought this house several years ago.


BeGreen,
That's really all I was looking for. I was guessing there would be a little more loss. I was plugging in 60%, but I like 70% better. As I was cutting and splitting wood this last weekend, I was really wondering if my time and effort was going to be mostly wasted heating mother earth. Maybe this won't be as bad as I thought.

 

[begreen]

I was referring to woodstoves, but rereading the orig thread I may be off. What stove are we talking about here? If this is a coal/wood combo, maybe 60% is a better estimate.

 

[Wet1]

It's a Harman "E" coal/wood combo, but it's an EPA stove...

 

[begreen]

Is that the TLC2000?

http://www.harmanstoves.com/features.asp?id=7

 

[Wet1]

No, the "E" CW30.

 

[begreen]

No, the "E" CW30.

Ah, rare bird that one. Where did you find it? Can you post some pictures?

 

[Todd]

I don't know what kind of numbers to plug into your calculator, but figure on the upstairs being anywhere from 3-10 degrees cooler than your basement. You will never get them to even out since a wood stove is a space heater, but you can be comfortable and cut fuel bills big time.

 

[Wet1]

No, the "E" CW30.

Ah, rare bird that one. Where did you find it? Can you post some pictures?

Very rare indeed. After doing some research, I decided this was the stove I absolutely wanted to have because it was the only EPA coal/wood stove ever made, it was the perfect size, and it was the only wood/coal stove I noticed Corrie seemed to have a lot of respect for. I searched all over online and came up with zero leads. I was about to go look at new stoves one night after work when I thought I'd do one last nation wide search for the "E" on Craigslist. Much to my surprise my elusive stove was listed about an hour before my last search and was located within a couple hours of me I made a quick call and finally struck a great deal on my white elephant and then ran over and picked it up.

The previous owner took great care of it and it's in excellent condition... even had new gaskets, unused factory blower, factory manual (with maintenance history), and a spare set of new fire bricks. I really lucked out on this one! It's to bad they made so few of these stoves, the way they were engineered and built is amazing. It's a shame Harman doesn't still build them today...

I'll be happy to post a couple of pictures but it's dismantled and buried in my garage at the moment. I probably won't get around to installing it for a few months since I have so much going on. Once I put it back together and pull it out of the garage, is there anything in particular you'd like to see pics of?

 

[begreen]

Great find. Front, back, top and interior views would be great. I am particularly interested how they manage the air flow and options provided for top (wood) or bottom (coal) burning. Is there a removable grate system for the coal?

 

[mmichaud]

My wood stove is in a finished basement. The basement takes a little bit to get warm. Once the walls warm up it will stay a decent temperature. Usually it is 75 degrees in the basement and 65 degrees upstairs. The only time that I notice a little more heat loss is when it is 10 degrees outside. At that point in time my 1950's house is loosing heat all over the place and I just throw a little more wood on.

 

[Wet1]

Thanks mmichaud, I was expecting about a 5 to 10 degree difference... hopefully not much more.

 

[Wet1]

Great find. Front, back, top and interior views would be great. I am particularly interested how they manage the air flow and options provided for top (wood) or bottom (coal) burning. Is there a removable grate system for the coal?

I've started another thread on this stove so we don't get to far OT here...
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/21007/

 

[chanlon]

Hello, I recently purchased a Harman E CW 30 from a friend. You are correct that it is a great wood/coal stove. I burn wood in the evening and over night, then I throw coal in it all day while I am at work. When I get home it is back to wood. It works great. I have it in the basement, and it basically heats my whole house. I live in central PA.
I am however having some problems with maintence. As I said I picked it up used this past fall and it is in pretty good shape. As I have burned for the last 3 months however, I am having some metal components inside the fire box deteriorating. There is a large metal crossbar on top that is falling apart. The secondary combustion waffle won't stay up top and continues to fall down. there are two metal rods that are attached to the metal crossbar that also are in rough shape. I am not even sure what they are used for??? I am going to try to get in touch with Harman and ask about parts.
I really like this stove, and want to keep it runnig well. Any suggestions on parts and or servicing the stove.
thanks
chanlon

 

[Jack Straw]

I have a raised ranch that's about 1500 square foot and well insulated with good windows. We put a lopi Endeavor in the basement. We have an open stairway without any heat registers. The basement stays about 80 and the 1st floor stays about 72. I assumed we would have to install some heat registers but the heat rises up the stairs nicely. The stairs are in the middle of the house. It couldn't have worked out better. I guess we got lucky, because there was only one place we could put the stove.

 

[Cearbhaill]

I have an insert in an unfinished (cinder block walls) walk out basement and my upstairs stays right around 66-67ºF until it gets below 5ºF outside.
Only when it gets below 5ºF do I need to turn on my furnace, so that is once this year so far. This is fabulous if you ask me.

I know I am very lucky that it works. In my case I think it does in part because by basement ceiling is unfinished, i.e. the floor is warmed upstairs.
Also the upstairs portion of the home is extremely well insulated with new, efficient windows. My insert is 10 feet from the open stairway and I have a ceiling fan in the room at the top of the stairs.

I love it.
Now, we do spend the bulk of our time downstairs in the super cozy basement family room, but the sleeping upstairs is a perfect temperature.
I am very happy that we decided to go this way.

A bonus is that all my wood and stove mess is confined to my basement

 

[Lumber-Jack]

Back in the early 80s I lived in a 2000 sq ft house with an insulated, partially finished basement that we put a wood stove in. It was the most comfortably heated house I ever lived in and it wasn't really insulated that great either. R12 in the walls, R20 in the ceiling. The room that had the wood stove did get pretty hot at times, but we just accepted that as part of the trade off for having nice warm floors upstairs.
Like Cearhaill said, it was nice to confine all the wood and mess to the basement which had it's own access door for carrying wood through.
It's true that cement floors suck up a lot of heat, they kind of work like big heat sinks, but they give that back as well. When the fire went out in the basement room it would take a long time to cool down again and subsequently so would the rest of the house. Of course the house also took a long time to warm from stone cold, so in order to really get the best use out of it you had to heat 24/7. Short hot fires didn't do much for taking a chill off the house, except in the basement.

If I ever had the opportunity to heat the house from the basement again I would do it in a heartbeat,,, I hate cold basements.

 

[Wet1]

A little OT, but anyone have any good and relatively cheap methods of insulating a basement floor w/o worrying about mildew? I know HD/Lowes sells those wood panels with the plastic grid on the bottom, but they are fairly expensive and probably not the greatest insulators. Right now I just have a layer of padding and carpet over the concrete floors. I guess this does insulate a little, but it's far from ideal for mildew control. Ideas?




BTW, I agree... it's really nice to have a really warm basement, and the warm floors above are a real treat as well. :coolsmile:

 

[edthedawg]

I'd worry about anything, honestly. You are trying to stop air movement (insulation) while preventing mildew/mold buildup - and they LOVE still, moist air to grow!

I'd look into painting the basement walls w/ Dry-Lok, sealing any cracks w/ hydraulic cement, and adding a dehumidifier to the room w/ an automatic float-switch pump to it, or drain it into a sump pit.

Then depending on the height you have available, if you can spare 4", i wonder how this would work:

Steel studs on the flat, on the floor, spaced about a foot apart, to give you airspace. Screw 3/4" Advantec OSB plywood subflooring to those. Then lay 2" rigid Dow/Dupont styrofoam boards over that. Another layer of Advantec over that (you're essentially making a SIP on the floor), and then pad/carpet over that.

You'd still need to dry the air out above and below the floor system.

 

[waynek]

My "Roaring 20s" era two-story brick sided home has no modern insulation in the sidewall, but R-30 in the attic floor. The basement has 12 inch thick poured concrete walls 5' high at ground level. There are 8" x 24" glazed blocks, five tiers on top of that. 4 inch block veneer on the outside of the glazed blocks. There is a concrete floor and a two-flue masonary chimney with a brick face in the basement.

I hired a contractor to line the chimney flues with the Ahren's liquid pour lining process. Then I installed a Round Oak D- 18 heating stove into the basement flue. The other flue serves the 1st floor fireplace. The only part of the un-finished basement that I insulated was the 9' x 9' pantry. Insulated the room, electrified it and applied knotty-pine board finish to use as a office. The rest of of the basement floor space is a combination work shop and mechanical room. Right from the start I knew I would be heating the ground outside of the walls. Fired the stove for a couple of years and if the outside temperature did not go below 25 degrees and no strong winds from the west or northwest, it heated the 1500 sq. ft. living space adequately. First floor average temp would be 68 - 70 degrees, second floor 62 to 64 degrees. The room with a fireplace is 14' x 18' and is where the family gathers for conversation, reading or TV. So if it feels a little chilly there we burn the woodburning fireplace.

When Y2K came on the horizon I started thinking about improving the heating situtation. The first thing I did was dig out around the outside house foundation and installed 1 1/2" extruded polystyrene insulation 4' x 8' board. As mentioned the poured foundation wall was 5 feet high at ground level so I applied the sheets of insulation 4 feet deep. Back filled the project. The only problem with the project was the wife gave me grief about digging in some of her flower beds and killing some of arbor vitae shrubbery.

The second action I took was to cut a hole in the first floor directly above the basement stove. Actually, there was a register there at one time when the house was heated by a coal furnace many, many years ago. Installed a antique, nice cast iron 18" x 20" adjustable opening register. Well Y2K came and went and the electric power grid did not go down, but this inexpensive home improvement did assist the heating stove capability of heating the house. With the register open and the basement door ajar, I can achieve warmer temperatures in the first two floors and the fireplace is not burned as much. There is a noticable difference in the amount of heat generated in the basement now, I am sure due to the outside basement wall insulation which I believe is 7.5 R value. The insulation has helped the basement function better as a heat sink. The concrete walls and floor absorb a great deal of heat. Look at my stove installation on my profile. The two-flue chimney foundation is 5' wide x 8' high and when the stove, which is at a minimum 18" clearance, is heating there is a lot of heat stored. At times I have to throttle the wood stove down while I am working in the shop area because I get to sweating bullets.

It is hard to quantify the amount of wood fuel I have saved since 1999 because there are good winters and bad winters. My perception is that I have... at the very least, the house is warmer. Recently, I read someone say, maybe on this website, "if your basement is warm your, your house is warm."

Jackpine

 

[Wet1]

I'd worry about anything, honestly. You are trying to stop air movement (insulation) while preventing mildew/mold buildup - and they LOVE still, moist air to grow!

I'd look into painting the basement walls w/ Dry-Lok, sealing any cracks w/ hydraulic cement, and adding a dehumidifier to the room w/ an automatic float-switch pump to it, or drain it into a sump pit.

Then depending on the height you have available, if you can spare 4", i wonder how this would work:

Steel studs on the flat, on the floor, spaced about a foot apart, to give you airspace. Screw 3/4" Advantec OSB plywood subflooring to those. Then lay 2" rigid Dow/Dupont styrofoam boards over that. Another layer of Advantec over that (you're essentially making a SIP on the floor), and then pad/carpet over that.

You'd still need to dry the air out above and below the floor system.

Most of my walls are already covered with insulation & Sheetrock. But even if they weren't, I have a stone foundation so I doubt I'd have much luck with the dry-loc... short of spraying it on.

I think we have close to a full 8' down there, of which I believe about 15" or so is above grade. My father (retired) and I talked about doing exactly as you suggested (with me doing all the work of course) since I have the room, but it just sounds like more money and time than I care to invest given all the other projects I need to get to first. Plus I think it would still be hard to keep the bottom side ventilated. I was really hoping there was an cheaper/easier solution, but I suppose that's wishful thinking...

Jackpine,
I've thought about doing the exterior insulation as well, but a have a mostly stove foundation and the front half and back half of the foundation/house are covered with a porch and deck respectfully. So even if I wanted to spray foam the exterior foundation, half of it would be a major PITA. I've pretty much decided I'll live with having the interior insulation, even though I know doing the exterior would be ideal.