Keeping Basement Warm w/Wood Stove

[jwoair23]

Hi All,

Hoping I am allowed to ask this question here as it veers slightly off topic, but is related to a problem a lot of us may have. I am heating my house about 90% with wood at this point, though I do have a gas furnace. That has worked very well in our ranch home, but we are finishing about 550 sq. feet in our basement right now as one large living room. I am trying to determine the best way to keep this area heated. Currently, before the walls are up and the insulation is added, the basement is staying about 58-60F on the coldest days.

I am wondering if my best/easiest option to get it up to about 72F is an electric fireplace, or even a gas one (if I had a line ran).

How many BTU's do you think it would require to get it from 58F->72F in a 550 sq ft room?

If I do get one, I would want it to have a thermostat and would just leave it on to regulate itself.

Any thoughts, or does anyone have a better idea? I will have ducting ran into this room, but I am trying to avoid running the whole house gas furnace where I can.

 

[rwhite]

Hi All,

Hoping I am allowed to ask this question here as it veers slightly off topic, but is related to a problem a lot of us may have. I am heating my house about 90% with wood at this point, though I do have a gas furnace. That has worked very well in our ranch home, but we are finishing about 550 sq. feet in our basement right now as one large living room. I am trying to determine the best way to keep this area heated. Currently, before the walls are up and the insulation is added, the basement is staying about 58-60F on the coldest days.

I am wondering if my best/easiest option to get it up to about 72F is an electric fireplace, or even a gas one (if I had a line ran).

How many BTU's do you think it would require to get it from 58F->72F in a 550 sq ft room?

If I do get one, I would want it to have a thermostat and would just leave it on to regulate itself.

Any thoughts, or does anyone have a better idea? I will have ducting ran into this room, but I am trying to avoid running the whole house gas furnace where I can.

Any chance of zoning your furnace when you install duct work?

 

[KC2004]

If your basement is closed off to the main floor, it will definitely help to keep the heat down there from whichever solution you choose to insulate the ceiling. I finished our basement this past year, it's around 1200 sq feet and we have a Kozy Heat Z42 installed down there. We didn't add a 3rd zone to our HVAC but just tapped into the existing main floor zone. Adding a zone may be a great option for you if you don't want to have to tend two fires and all the extra work that will add in keeping up your wood supply. The Z42 will keep the basement temps nice for around 12-15 hrs with one burn cycle. I can start a fire around 6 pm in the evening, it will burn hot for 4 - 5 hrs before going to the coaling stage and then the fireplace continues to put out heat overnight into the morning. We have a decent amount of stone thermal mass around the fireplace which warms up and then puts off heat into the space as as well. I used rockwool in all the walls & ceiling (not fun!). It does a nice job of insulating sound too which is a benefit if you have wood floors above. I will say, we have the ability to pull heat upstairs with an added heat transfer kit with blower. It's been invaluable to being able to regulate the temps in the basement from getting too hot if we have a fire going.

 

[KC2004]

I just realized i completely ignored your question on electric heat. I will say this, the basment doesn't get warm enough with just our added duct work. I tried a 1500 watt electric space heater to see if it could change the temps in the room at all without the fireplace being used and the space was too big to notice any difference. You could look into installing heated flooring possibly depending on what you are doing for floors. Electric heat can be expensive so if you are trying to avoid running the gas which is much less expensive than electric in most places, electric may not be the best option and a zoned hvac system is probably your most economical option as mentioned above by rwhite. Good insulation will be key in keeping the heat down there and lowering the cost of running the furnace.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

Hi All,

Hoping I am allowed to ask this question here as it veers slightly off topic, but is related to a problem a lot of us may have. I am heating my house about 90% with wood at this point, though I do have a gas furnace. That has worked very well in our ranch home, but we are finishing about 550 sq. feet in our basement right now as one large living room. I am trying to determine the best way to keep this area heated. Currently, before the walls are up and the insulation is added, the basement is staying about 58-60F on the coldest days.

I am wondering if my best/easiest option to get it up to about 72F is an electric fireplace, or even a gas one (if I had a line ran).

How many BTU's do you think it would require to get it from 58F->72F in a 550 sq ft room?

If I do get one, I would want it to have a thermostat and would just leave it on to regulate itself.

Any thoughts, or does anyone have a better idea? I will have ducting ran into this room, but I am trying to avoid running the whole house gas furnace where I can.

I live in a ranch also. I finished pretty much my entire basement. I did both a small gas fireplace as well as electric baseboard heat. Both stay off. If the kids or I am in the living room down there, we pop on the fireplace; it heats it up quickly. If someone is going to be down there of extended time, the thermostat to the baseboard gets turned on. It's okay to have options.

 

[johnkozlo]

I have a 40,000 btu gas insert in my living room. I have been thinking about adding another gas insert in the fireplace in my basement. I think for the size of your space, a 40,000 btu insert would be perfect. Mine has a thermostat and you can control it the amount of gas and fan speed. So, you could just turn it on when you are using the basement. Set it and let it maintain the space. If you don't need 40,000 btu, turn down the gas. At least you know you will definitely be able to heat the space even in the coldest winter nights.

 

[stoveliker]

Why not add a minisplit? Easiest to install.

 

[johnkozlo]

Minisplits are nice. I guess it would depend on your particular situation as to which would be easier to install. I don't think you would use the AC much in the basement. I think if you wanted to keep the space constantly conditioned, the minisplit is probably the best option. Yet, it's no where near as "cool" as an insert.

 

[EbS-P]

I’m going to second the mini split. Put it dehumidification mode in the summer. Zoning your hvac on a single stage unit for a space that size just won’t work well.

I am going through a similar process with my basement. It’s 1000 sq ft. One really open space and two smaller spaces. I just added registers from my main hvac. It’s fine until it gets cold or we don’t run the heatpump because the upstairs stove is burning. We had a masonry fireplace that I installed an insert it. It works well enough. It’s a real pain running two stoves. I really haven’t finished the space where the mini split will go so I went stove first. The reality is a mini split would have been much better for the second space that sees infrequent use. By the time the insert gets up to temp and cruising we’ve finished what ever we were doing. When it’s cold it takes a good bit of time to raise the temp 5 degrees with the insert. If you have gas already I think that’s a decent option. If you don’t spend much time down there nothing beats the cost to install electric heat. It’s expensive to run but my math showed it would be 200$ a year to run a 4.4 kw electric heater 6 hours a day for 60 days a year. Install cost would be 1000$.
10 year cost would be 3000$. Can’t install a wood stove for that I don’t think.