Looking for some advice

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Abfitch1212

New Member
Dec 23, 2009
18
Southington,Ct
This is my second year with my Harman P68. I love the stove and it throws out alot of heat. I am just looking for some feed back on my situation. The Harman is in my basement of my cape cod style house. The reason the stove is down there is because we have a finished basement with no heat down there and me and the wife like to watch tv down there. The stove heats the first floor to about 69-71 but struggles to make it to the second floor. The second floor temp is around 61-63. I cut a vent (4x14) from the first floor to the basement and have a fan blwing cold air into the basement. I leave the basement door open about 12-14 inches. The basement is finished and insulated. The problem I am having is that i am going through 1.5-2 bags of somerset pellets and greenteam pellets. Is that normal or to much pellet usage. I am just looking to see what i can go to get more heat upstairs. Should there be another vent somewhere or do people feel i am doing good here. Any feed back would be great
Thanks
 
Well I am hardly an expert but I think you are asking probably to much from 1 stove,I know heat rises but it also cools as it rises away from the heat source.So either you need to open more vent sources or simply add a second stove,its not unheard of to use 2.I am and love it that way, as I do not have an open floor layout I have 2 stoves each on a low setting.No room in the house is sweltering nor cold.
 
I was thinking about doing that. How many tons of pellets do u go through a year with two stoves. Also is there anyone I can talk to about circulating the hot air upstairs. Seems like the stove should heat the whole house. Wondering if I place a vent between second and first floor. I just want to make sure after I cut hole I put it in right place and it is going to work. Any help will help people. I go through about four tons of pellets. Thanks
 
about 3 ton
 
How many square for is your house. Do u have any vents. Do u keep basement door open. Also any fans blowing air around in house. Thanks
 
small house,1300sf both stoves on 1st floor,had used fans before 2nd stove now no need....1 at each end of house

oh chit didnt realize u are only in southington...lol
 
Abfitch1212 said:
This is my second year with my Harman P68. I love the stove and it throws out alot of heat. I am just looking for some feed back on my situation. The Harman is in my basement of my cape cod style house. The reason the stove is down there is because we have a finished basement with no heat down there and me and the wife like to watch tv down there. The stove heats the first floor to about 69-71 but struggles to make it to the second floor. The second floor temp is around 61-63. I cut a vent (4x14) from the first floor to the basement and have a fan blwing cold air into the basement. I leave the basement door open about 12-14 inches. The basement is finished and insulated. The problem I am having is that i am going through 1.5-2 bags of somerset pellets and greenteam pellets. Is that normal or to much pellet usage. I am just looking to see what i can go to get more heat upstairs. Should there be another vent somewhere or do people feel i am doing good here. Any feed back would be great
Thanks

Basement is the biggest thing against you insulated or not! If you move the stove to the first floor it will be at the basements temp now, And the second floor would be close to the main floors temp your getting at present. Moving the heat up to the 1st floor is tough enough, Trying to get another floor on top of it is darned near impossible.

How many square feet you trying to heat total here? You might just be better off with a pellet furnace or boiler to do the heating chore for you. If you have any data from previous years heating with Oil/NG or whatever fuel. You can figure out what its going to take for BTU total per hour. I will bet with the basement space added its going to be far more than 68,000 BTU's per hour. Plus there is an effiency factor to the pellet stove as your not getting all 68,000 BTU's in the house. To some extent some is going out the vent pipe. Stove BTU rating is input BTU's as in the BTU's of the fuel/ So a lesser pellet will produce less also.

I have lived for 11 years with a pellet stove in the basement. Spent many hours trying to figure out how to move the air and so on. Bu I have a raised ranch and only heating 2 floors total. I can do it with one stove but it was a struggle to achieve this. Next time its a pellet furnace and put the heat where I want it and not waste heating a floor I don't want to heat anyway!
 
Jakeman thanks for your imput. We are heating about 2000 feet with basement and four season sunroom off finished basement. The only reason why we put stove in basement is because there is no heat down there and we are always down in sunroom watching tv. I know i am asking a lot for the stove to heat whole house and does a great job in basement and first floor but just using a lot of pellets. I was just looking to see if another vent would work. My buddy has a ranch with stove in basement and has to vents from first floor to basement and says the heat coming up basement stairs is like a chimney. Just seeing what people think out there. To malea i am actually from Bristol not southington.
 
Anyone else with any more information for me. Do people think i should be using that many bags of pellets
 
I am heating approx. 2K sqft. I am using 1.5 bags a day at the present temps. In the bitter cold I have used as much as 2 .5 bags a day to stay warm.

The only way I have reduced this is to add the permanent bags of pellets to the walls and attic. Next on the list is a new front door and better windows.
 
We have a small Cape: 24X32...about 1520sq ft heated by stove.
Had toyed with the idea of putting it in the basement but many folks here said not to do it.
So glad we put it in the livingroom. We would have had the same issues as you maybe worse
as our basement is not finished
The house is 2X4 construction and not insulated the way it should be. (In progress)
When it hit -25F the first year with the stove, had the livingroom/1st floor at 78 and the upstairs
North facing bedroom at 63. (No oil at all)

Have started using oil to maintain 67 in that bedroom during the day.
Burn 1 to 1.5 bags a day.
 
Abfitch1212 said:
Jakeman thanks for your imput. We are heating about 2000 feet with basement and four season sunroom off finished basement. The only reason why we put stove in basement is because there is no heat down there and we are always down in sunroom watching tv. I know i am asking a lot for the stove to heat whole house and does a great job in basement and first floor but just using a lot of pellets. I was just looking to see if another vent would work. My buddy has a ranch with stove in basement and has to vents from first floor to basement and says the heat coming up basement stairs is like a chimney. Just seeing what people think out there. To malea i am actually from Bristol not southington.

Is your heating system(oil)(gas) hot air or hot water?
We have hot water.
If you have hot air, you might try allowing some of the heat from the basement into the cold air return and run only the circulation fan on the furnace. In our case, I would like to put a second stove in the basement and fabricate a heat exchanger to heat the water for the 2nd floor loop. May/May not work but you never know......
 
Well the first floor and second floor is on the oil baseboard boiler. We have seperate zones so the only time we use the oil to heat the house is on the second floor in the mornings. our hot water also runs on the oil boiler. Maybe I am asking to much from the stove. Just looking on ideas how to circulate the air more and if there is someone I should call to tell me how to do it in my area of connecticut. Thanks for the imput guys
 
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