Moving pellet stove heat around effectively....

[black_sab]

Hi All,

Trying to absorb the wealth of information here on the forum. Still tough to find an exact answer/opinion for some issues.... so here my question.

I've been a baseboard natural gas customer for my whole life, so I'm trying to come up to speed on oil/wood/pellet since I'm looking at some oil heated houses in places where there is no nat gas available (i.e. southern New Hampshire). I pay anywhere from $1500-2000 per season with the heat cranked to 70 on two or 3 floors in a circa 1890 3 family. I'd guess the area i'm heating is ~1500 sq ft)

Assumptions for potential house...
2 story older farmhouse (early 1800s to 1900s) (3 if you include with finished/unoccupied attic).
Roughly 1600 sq ft/floor, going by outside house dimensions. Four 15x15 rooms + large/long breezeway + staircase..
new-ish Forced hot air system
Fireplace in each room.

If I have a floor layout similar to the attached picture on the first floor... with rooms marked "1", "2", "3", "4".
How readily would heat get from say room "1" (living room w/pellet) to room "4" at the opposite corner?
Would a large pellet stove be able to bring that opposite corner room "4" up to a decent temp in a reasonable amount of time with/without fans?
I understand that heated air will need to make a mad dash through the area with the breezeway and staircase... where undoubtedly some of it will get whisked away to the upper floor.

I'm assuming that at some point oil is going to go back up, and it would seem that trying to locate the heat where the people are would be the best bet to save money in the long run. so Maybe it would be better to consider a pellet for the second floor and crank that up an hour before bedtime to keep the second floor warm.

No clue how many gallons oil a oil forced hot air system is going to use trying to keep an old house up over 65.

 

[bags]

Welcome! Use the search bar here and do a lot of reading. This topic has been covered a gazillion times. The site seems to be slow this time of the year for obvious reasons and warmer temps. You have some time for research before it is cold again too. I'll check back and Good Luck.

There is a lot to cover and consider before making decisions and taking the plunge. Don't jump in blindly when purchasing a home, car, nor pellet stove. Otherwise results can be dismal. Not to be a dream crusher here but do your homework because it will pay off big later in all the above mentioned.

Insulation and sealing a buildings envelope is huge. So is buying the right pellet stove or heat source for the job. Leaky old farm houses and such a hard to heat no matter what you plan and do but anything can be done with some proper planning and thought. Invest some time reading and researching here and throughout the wild wild inter web.... Don't believe everything you see and read either. Think it thru and asjk questions. Do your home work here. Hopefully others will chime in but you have just shown up during the slow time. Sorry about that but you can find tons of old threads on your very questions. Read up and enjoy.

 

[mass_burner]

Hallways and thresholds are lateral heat movement killers. If you have zone heat, try putting on the heat in the room the stove would be in and not the other rooms. What happens?

 

[black_sab]

Welcome! Use the search bar here and do a lot of reading. This topic has been covered a gazillion times. The site seems to be slow this time of the year for obvious reasons and warmer temps. You have some time for research before it is cold again too. I'll check back and Good Luck.

There is a lot to cover and consider before making decisions and taking the plunge. Don't jump in blindly when purchasing a home, car, nor pellet stove. Otherwise results can be dismal. Not to be a dream crusher here but do your homework because it will pay off big later in all the above mentioned.

Insulation and sealing a buildings envelope is huge. So is buying the right pellet stove or heat source for the job. Leaky old farm houses and such a hard to heat no matter what you plan and do but anything can be done with some proper planning and thought. Invest some time reading and researching here and throughout the wild wild inter web.... Don't believe everything you see and read either. Think it thru and asjk questions. Do your home work here. Hopefully others will chime in but you have just shown up during the slow time. Sorry about that but you can find tons of old threads on your very questions. Read up and enjoy.

Thanks for the reply!

I've spent 3 hours a night reading threads on this forum the last few days so I'm getting a better idea of what I can expect. I'm also reading the wood boiler forum as well to see if that might be a better option.

The only thing that is a bit frustrating is that it's tough (if not impossible) to get an apples to apples comparison. What works in one 4000 sq ft open plan house, may fail miserably in a 2000 sq ft house with closed off rooms and lots of hallways it seems.

I can take care of the low hanging fruit myself and make the interior of the building tight, already did that in various places I've owned. The house I'm looking at has got all new vinyl windows, but you don't know until you get a cold snap whether the contractor cut corners. I've reinstalled plenty of vinyls and was aghast at the cut corners these contractors often take proper sealing..

 

[Lake Girl]

Some help with calculations on BTUs needed and costing of various types of heating .... https://www.hearth.com/what/specific.php

With that age of house, you are really going to want to try to capitalize on insulating first ... good windows and doors with good weather stripping (rubberized membrane to seal joints between windows and frame to prevent air infiltration), chalking, etc. 0 insulation in the walls of a 100 year old house we used to own.... plaster and lathe was deteriorating so it was torn out, insulated wall cavities and vapour barriered. If rehab has already been done, verify ...

With the potential layout, heat may be hard to move. Some use furnace fans to just cycle air throughout the house. Some use multiple heating appliances - bags bought one new and one used that he refurbished. Some forget pellet stoves and go with boiler systems.

 

[black_sab]

Some help with calculations on BTUs needed and costing of various types of heating .... https://www.hearth.com/what/specific.php

With that age of house, you are really going to want to try to capitalize on insulating first ... good windows and doors with good weather stripping (rubberized membrane to seal joints between windows and frame to prevent air infiltration), chalking, etc. 0 insulation in the walls of a 100 year old house we used to own.... plaster and lathe was deteriorating so it was torn out, insulated wall cavities and vapour barriered. If rehab has already been done, verify ...

With the potential layout, heat may be hard to move. Some use furnace fans to just cycle air throughout the house. Some use multiple heating appliances - bags bought one new and one used that he refurbished. Some forget pellet stoves and go with boiler systems.

Thanks for chiming in Lake Girl, I've read a lot of your posts.

My current 1890 plaster and lathe 3 family was leaky as heck when I moved in. I weather sealed everything and replaced all the old drafty windows. It's super tight at this point and warm even without any insulation at all in the walls. That being said, it's only 800 sq ft at most. My heat is tied into the 3rd floor as well, so it's as if I'm heating a ~1500 ft house.

One of the issues I'm running into is not really knowing what's in the walls. sellers normally shrug with ignorance. the house I'm looking at was picked up for cheap and re-done. I don't have access to the seller/contractor (who has never even lived there for even a single day). The seller's agent says "there is some cellulose" in the walls. Who knows to what extent.

I have an inspection camera that I take with me with a nice long extension, so with the owners permission I can at least remove an outlet cover and usually get into a few cavities without causing too much hassle.

I have access to the main floor boards from underneath in the basement. I'm also researching a radiant retrofit to take care of the first floor, and then letting the FHA do the second floor at night. The seller put in a huge new FHA system. radiant is going to require a boiler though, so I'm not sure what the payback would be. I'd like to stay a minimum 10 years or longer at my next house.

 

[bogieb]

At this point I would be more worried about how much of that hot air is going up thru all the fireplaces.

As for getting heat from room #1 to room #4, I would assume that it will be tough without several fans (of course YMMV). I use two fans with the following set up: house is 24 x 40; layout of rooms similar to yours, but the hallway goes from inside corner of #1 to inside corner of #2 (fans are set high in the doorway to the hall); and Hastings is set up at an angle on the outside wall of #2 at the junction of #1, so air has a pretty straight shot back.

 

[black_sab]

Lake Girl, thanks for the link... I padded the numbers a bit and I'm looking at around 12k btu per room for heat. So around 48k btu/hr for each of the first and second floors.

 

[black_sab]

At this point I would be more worried about how much of that hot air is going up thru all the fireplaces.

As for getting heat from room #1 to room #4, I would assume that it will be tough without several fans (of course YMMV). I use two fans with the following set up: house is 24 x 40; layout of rooms similar to yours, but the hallway goes from inside corner of #1 to inside corner of #2 (fans are set high in the doorway to the hall); and Hastings is set up at an angle on the outside wall of #2 at the junction of #1, so air has a pretty straight shot back.

At least two of the fireplaces are blocked off. One on the first.. one on the second. I'll figure out how to block off the fireplaces that I'll never use. Like the ones in two kid's rooms. There's got to be a way to "tastefully" block them off with a sandwich of rigid foam/painted wood that's tightly sealed around the perimeter.

 

[bogieb]

At least two of the fireplaces are blocked off. One on the first.. one on the second. I'll figure out how to block off the fireplaces that I'll never use. Like the ones in two kid's rooms. There's got to be a way to "tastefully" block them off with a sandwich of rigid foam/painted wood that's tightly sealed around the perimeter.

You may know this already, but thought I would mention that if you use rigid foam, your fire codes probably state that it has to be covered by class 1 rated fire material (don't flame me for bad choice of words - I'm no expert). Something like sheetrock is usually mentioned. I used rigid foam to insulate my basement and have it covered with radiant heat reflective insulation material that claims to have the correct rating. I will eventually get sheet rock up, but until then the combination has done a fine job of keeping the foundation walls from sucking up a lot of heat. The covering is not necessarily about keeping the foam from burning, but to keep it cool enough for long enough that fatal fumes don't immediately kill anyone before they even have a chance to hear the fire alarm.

 

[CleanFire]

I used rigid foam to insulate my basement and have it covered with radiant heat reflective insulation material that claims to have the correct rating. I will eventually get sheet rock up, but until then the combination has done a fine job of keeping the foundation walls from sucking up a lot of heat.

That's an excellent idea, was weighing different options for what to do here as part of insulating - Thanks for posting that.

black_sab: When I asked this question years ago to our local Fire Dept., they suggested making a block off using (thin) cement board & tiling, outer piece to cover the opening, with an inner piece attached & sized to the dimensions so it fit in / was held in-place.

 

[bogieb]

That's an excellent idea, was weighing different options for what to do here as part of insulating - Thanks for posting that.

Just make sure to use the adhesive made specifically to attach the foamboard to the concrete foundation. Contractor adhesive, and many other adhesives will just melt the foam (or so I read during my research for the project). Of course that assumes that you don't screw it into the concrete.

 

[smwilliamson]

Don't blow hot air toward the rooms, blow the cold air towards the stove

 

[bogieb]

Don't blow hot air toward the rooms, blow the cold air towards the stove

Unless that cold room is sitting over an unheated garage - then you will just pull more cold air into the house. Or at least in my case that is what happened; when I turned off the floor fan blowing cold air out of my bedroom, it got much warmer and I was a happy camper.

 

[smwilliamson]

Unless that cold room is sitting over an unheated garage - then you will just pull more cold air into the house. Or at least in my case that is what happened; when I turned off the floor fan blowing cold air out of my bedroom, it got much warmer and I was a happy camper.

And then there's that too but in most cases it holds true