Moving to an old farm house...

[JA600L]

Hi guys,

I haven't been on here for a while. I was one of the first batch owners of the Woodstock Soapstone Ideal Steel. The stove has been heating my 1,800 sqft rancher with ease. I'm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and the coldest days are no match for the Ideal Steel.

I insulated the basement (where it sits) . The house has block foundation and 2x4 walls. The windows were replaced, attic insulated, gaps filled. I spent a lot of time setting the stove up to succeed and it did.

So now it's time to move on....
We are purchasing an early 1900 farm house. It is my wife's grandparents house. I figure it's around 2,000 sqft total living space. The unfinished basement is probably another 800-1000 sqft. It has thick stone walls in the basement and the above foundation walls are much thicker then my current house.

Her grand parents did add insulation to the walls and attic. Most of the windows have been replaced. Its a well constructed and mostly updated house.

It currently has an oil furnace in the basement which occupies the only flue. There are small windows in the stone walls that could maybe be widened so that I could setup a class A chimney.

Here it comes.... will the Ideal Steel in all of its glory heat the old farm house? I am only willing to heat from the basement as I'm not willing to carry wood through the house. I know all the reasons why nobody likes installing a wood stove in a basement and I totally understand that.

I like the idea of a wood furnace (Drolet Heat Commander) too but I'm not a fan of relying on electricity for it to operate. I am local to DS Stoves as their manufacturing facility is 10 minutes away. The Amish man there recommended the Energy Max 160 to me.

They have a hood system that they install which acts like ductwork but has no blower and just sits above the stove directing heat to areas of the house. They list their stoves as coal burning to get around the EPA (no tax credit). However, the man in the showroom assured me they are designed to burn wood. It is a large unit and has an automatic control . They would also be close by if I need help. 1,100 lb stove.

My gut tells me the Ideal Steel could do the job 75% of the time. The energy max would do it 100% with ease. The biggest thing I would need to sort out is if the chimney should be 6" or 8" . Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[FPX Dude]

Go with with big boy, but it's gonna hard to heat the house from the basement, search the threads for info on that.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Are you planning to closed cell foam the basement walls? That’d go a long way toward the ideal steel doing what you want it to.

 

[Ashful]

Congratulations on the house. Looks like a nice place, and it always feels good to keep a family legacy going. Two comments:

1. Although we can't see depth of the house in the photo, I'm just guessing that your 2000 ft2 estimate must be off by a good bit. Quick estimate, measure footprint of house x number of occupied floors, and I think you're looking at a good bit more than 2000 ft2, there.

2. Radiant stoves will always fail in any room with exposed masonry. Simple physics, they work by radiating heat onto objects in their line of site, with those objects increasing the net warm conductive surface area. The air is heated by conduction from these warm objects, and convective currents carry that warm air through the house. But an exterior stone wall will NEVER get warm, so that all heat radiated from the stove in that direction is lost to the earth. You need to either fully block off the stone with wall board and insulation, or to swap to a convective stove, which heats the air directly, bypassing the stone wall. My setup of a convective stove in a stone fireplace, with the only radiant surface (glass) pointing into the house at an interior wall, is the way to heat a stone house.

 

[begreen]

It looks like a beautiful spot. I agree with Ashful. Our old farmhouse is 2000 sq ft and this looks much larger. It wouldn't surprise me that it turned out to be more than 3,000 sq ft, not including the basement. What do the tax records show? I'd seriously consider a good wood furnace with a ducting design that supports natural convection as well as forced air. Did the house at one time have a gravity-heat coal furnace? If so, the old register locations might still be evident. A wood furnace won't take a ton of power to run off of a generator. Looks like this place will need a whole lot of seasoned wood to heat.

Personally, I'd also figure out how to add another chimney and put a wood stove in the main living area. Done right, a wood stove does not have to mean a lot of debris tracked into the house. If the stove/furnace is in the basement, how does the wood get down there?

 

[gzecc]

Id guess closer to 3000sq. ft.

 

[Ashful]

Did the house at one time have a gravity-heat coal furnace? If so, the old register locations might still be evident.

Hey begreen, this is probably fuel for another thread, but I'm curious about these old gravity-heat coal furnaces. My last house was built 1877, and there was evidence of a coal chute and a large (2' x 3' or larger) grate between basement and kitchen addition, as well as ceiling-to-floor registers between first and second floors and second to third floors. I believe the addition was added in the 1880's or 1890's.

Is there any info on this forum about such setups? Other than the basic understanding of "hot air rises", I always wondered about the details of how it all worked.

One interesting thing about that place was that, in addition to a coal chute, there was gas piping for gas lights throughout. Why one would use gas only for lighting, but still coal for heating, seems foreign to our modern perspective. But I'm guessing there were good reasons for doing so in the 1870's - 1890's.

 

[peakbagger]

One of the many reasons why these central furnaces fell out of favor was that if there was a fire in the house, with the direct connection to the basement the entire place would burn to the ground. There was also potential for combustion byproducts to enter the living space.

 

[stoveliker]

It's not hard to heat a house from the basement. (I heat a 1700 sqft home from an 825 sqft basement, so in total 2525 sqft. It works well with a stove that's not known for its "beast like output".)

Your home will be tough though, with two full levels (and a third) on top of the basement.
Convection alone may be not enough, however well set up from the old craftsmanship.

If you go the basement route, first insulate as much there as you can (see ashful). Second, get some place where you blow cold air into the basement and have one or more other places where warm air will (therefore) be pushed up the next floor. I do this (you can find my posts searching for fire damper). The fan uses 26 W, which is easily available from the portable generator that runs the fridge and some lights when the power goes down. Those 26 Watts are all electricity I need to heat my home...

If there are ducts or hydronic in the home, a wood furnace might be better; it allows you to better and more evenly spread the heat over what I see are 3 floors above ground and one below (!).

 

[JA600L]

Ok guys, I have a confession...
The house does currently have a fire place insert. It is in the living room which would heat the whole house very evenly. I just really don't like the idea of having a fireplace insert.. . The room would not be ideal for a free standing stove in its place.

If I would go this route I would be interested in a blaze king as it would be as close to my Ideal Steel as it gets.

The house is not huge. My calculations put me right in the 2000 sqft range of finished space. The basement probably adds another 800-1,000 sqft. It has a cistern and crawl space under a sunroom. I'll sit down sometime and draw it out.

I threw in some more pictures as you guys seem to enjoy old houses 🏘

 

[stoveliker]

Beautiful.
If you're going basement route, make sure the wall to the cistern is insulated ... the heat sink that that might provide otherwise...

 

[Ashful]

It’s not old, but I like it anyway. Love the balcony, and I’m totally jealous of your barn, our main dairy barn was torn down by a prior owner. Is the small building behind the house a well house or spring house? I’d guess summer kitchen if the house were older, but I think they were history by 1900.

Have you been inside the cistern? Assuming it’s defunct? I’ve lived in a few houses with cisterns, but none operational. The last one had been air-sealed by a prior owner, as part of radon remediation. It always felt a little strange having a whole room of your basement that no one can access.

 

[begreen]

Hey begreen, this is probably fuel for another thread, but I'm curious about these old gravity-heat coal furnaces. My last house was built 1877, and there was evidence of a coal chute and a large (2' x 3' or larger) grate between basement and kitchen addition, as well as ceiling-to-floor registers between first and second floors and second to third floors. I believe the addition was added in the 1880's or 1890's.

Is there any info on this forum about such setups? Other than the basic understanding of "hot air rises", I always wondered about the details of how it all worked.

One interesting thing about that place was that, in addition to a coal chute, there was gas piping for gas lights throughout. Why one would use gas only for lighting, but still coal for heating, seems foreign to our modern perspective. But I'm guessing there were good reasons for doing so in the 1870's - 1890's.

The coal most likely preceded the gas lighting and may have been less expensive. Typically these coal furnaces had a large central supply with a 24" square or round register on the main floor for the output. Some of these systems had the return surrounding the interior supply in the same larger 36" floor register. Others had separate returns from the perimeter of the house.

https://historichomesofminnesota.com/the-monster-in-your-basement-the-gravity-furnace/

 

[begreen]

It's a beautiful spot . Go for the BK insert and don't look back. Or if you want a better fire view all the time then put in a PE Summit insert.

 

[xman23]

Going to take some burning to heat that place. Unless you know it was insulated. And why the basement? I know you did it before, but......It's all below grade, and I can only imagine what the stairs look like to get down there. The heat loss and getting the heat up and into the rest of the house is going to be a challenge.
I think you could store a lot of the winters wood under the back porch. It looks like easy access from the back door. I have a similar wood storage on a side porch. It's about 15' across the great room to the stove. Just knock of and loose stuff before coming in.

 

[stoveliker]

For sure a stove or insert on the LR floor is going to be most efficient for heat.

 

[JA600L]

can anybody tell me if it would be realistic to remove bricks in order to fit a woodstove in this spot. The room is only 11' 6" wide x 23' deep. My wife is against a stove sitting in front of the fireplace. I'm not scared of demolishing brick if it can be done.

I really don't want an insert. The main reason is a lack of an ash pan. Don't tell me I'll get used to it.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

With enough time, money, effort, and duct tape almost anything can be done.

 

[Ashful]

With enough time, money, effort, and duct tape almost anything can be done.

Impossible expectations were so common at my last job, that this almost became my standard answer to every new project request. Sure, we can do it... but will you be happy with the cost and time?

The difficulty of this particular project is difficult to assess without seeing what's happening behind that stove, and behind that fireplace facade.

 

[EbS-P]

View attachment 312722 can anybody tell me if it would be realistic to remove bricks in order to fit a woodstove in this spot. The room is only 11' 6" wide x 23' deep. My wife is against a stove sitting in front of the fireplace. I'm not scared of demolishing brick if it can be done.

I really don't want an insert. The main reason is a lack of an ash pan. Don't tell me I'll get used to it.

If you have height of the opening of at least 29” you can get a stove with ash pan. But…. It’s an exterior chimney so you will be heating a lot of the masonry and that heat will just go outside. It’s easy to add insulation around the insert then cover it with the face plate.

I do think a basement wood furnace is the best route. What are you willing to spend?

 

[begreen]

It may not need any modification. A good insert is what I would put in without hesitation. It will easily outperform this old classic and will provide a nice fire view.

 

[brenndatomu]

It currently has an oil furnace in the basement which occupies the only flue

How much oil do they use per year on average?
That should tell the story on heat load...