New Guy to forum, on fence about what to do.

[jasert39]

First, this is great forum, I've spent a few hours this morning reading some great information,

My wife and I live in a rancher style home with our Master Bedroom and Bath Raised to a second level...we have 100% electric baeboard heating and deregulation is starting an we know our rates will be steadily rising over the next year due to changes in the electric company's pricing. We are considering two options for supplementing (hopefully drastically reducing) the use of the dependence of the electric for heat. Hoping you folks would maybe give me more insight to which is more wise in the long run and where to focus my research, oh and we live in Southeastern PA if that changes anything.

#1- we have the ability to put a pellet stove in the basement and use a "secondary" chimney that is available for venting. This would probably eliminate the use of the electric heat in the basement but would enough heat "rise" up into our main living level of the home? This location is about right in the center of the basement. Basement is finished (othan that painted concrete floors), basement ceiling is not insulated.

#2 - we could install a wood/pellet insert in our fireplace that is located on the main level, I would think this option would better heat the main level but would keep the basement cold and dependent on the electric. Also our TV is hung above the fireplace and we would like it to stay there, so if the insert would affect our TV is guess that option is out at this point.

Our bedroom level has always been the warmest room since it is raised and I guess heat does rise up to there, our home was built very well insulated. I would think if the basement pellet stove puts off enough heat to rise up through our floors and up the stairway to substancial help heat the main level that it would be a better choice, but thought I would ask here first. We have ceiling fans in just about every room in the house (other than basement) to help moving air around ...sorry for rambling on, thanks in advance.

 

[hemlock]

Hello,
I would be tempted to put a good sized stove in the basement if I were you. The heat will rise and find its way upstairs, especially if the stove is in the centre of the basement. How big is your home?

 

[mralias]

Pellet stoves are space heaters and not made to do the entire house. However, it is nice when it will heat the entire house but it is often difficult to tell until it is installed and running. (Unless you get a pellet boiler). I would put the stove in the room you use the most. As far as the TV goes, it will depend on how close the tv is to the stove. Pellet stoves are not like wood stoves when it comes to distance to other objects but you still have to follow the recommendation of the manufacture and/or the code in your city or town. I have an insert and can touch the top of the stove no problem when it is going. Post some pics of the area you want to install it and I'm sure the pellet pro's on here well give you their 2 cents free of charge.

 

[jasert39]

Hello,
I would be tempted to put a good sized stove in the basement if I were you. The heat will rise and find its way upstairs, especially if the stove is in the centre of the basement. How big is your home?

When I bought my home the listing said it was 2200 sq. feet.

Just wanted to add, my only real goal with his entire project would be to heat as much of my home as I can without electricity. I have two huge electric wall heaters in the basement that would not be used at the very least with putting a stove down there, not to mention any other rooms above that may possible benefit. I am fully aware that I won't be able to heat my entire house with this stove wherever I put it in my home, just hoping to become a little less dependent of the electric bill!

 

[Trickyrick]

Jasert,

My biggest worry with any stove in the baesment is the term finished. Unless the basement is well insulated you will most likely loose more energy out the walls and floor than you will get upstairs.

That being said the pellet stove insert under a TV is not the best situation. Inserts are by nature more noisy than a comperable freestanding. Having a stove blowing air will significantly affect the TV experience.

If it was me I would take a digital recoder to the stove shop and record the sound of any stove you think you are going to purchase and set your playback right where you are thinking about putting the stove and see what happens.

If you have no other places for a stove on the main floor then I would look at a pellet furnace and run the ductwork in the basement up through the floor. The nature of a single story shoudld make that type of modification reasonable and you will get real savings.

 

[Jack Morrissey]

I have a split level - and we went with your option #2. The downstairs stays in the 50,s in the cold weather but we spend all of our time upstairs. The drawback of an insert though is its a pain cleaning it, and the hopper barely fits a bag of pellets..

 

[save$]

Any area of your home you want heated with the pellet stove needs to be well insulated. You will be very unhappy heating with a pellet stove should you put the heat in an area that is not well insulated. There are many folks on this forum that use our "space heater" pellet stoves to heat our entire home. Mine is just a little over 2000 sq ft. Raised ranch with split foyer. Our home is kept at 74-78F. We do supplement our heat a little in the extreme cold times. As for the insert bothering the tv, you might consider putting that question out to a second post. As for noise, I don't use the sound system on our tv's in either the family room or the living room. I use a separate sound system for both tv and music. This allows you to place speakers where you want them. Some stoves are more noisy than others. Some people are more offended by the sound than others. I don't even hear the stove any more. (wife says I have selective hearing) I don't think the heat from a pellet stove will bother a tv. but I am not an authority. You could get a simple heat deflector made up at any metal fabrication place that could deflect most of the radiant heat. I don't think that is much of a concern for most stoves. We often hear about cats who lay on top of some stoves. Not all stove are equal so you will want to shop around.
Our electric service is deregulated and now up to about 17 cents a KWH. I got a Kill A Watt Ez to test usage of different things. There is a lot of phantom usage from things we turn off, but are not really off. (most electronics)
Good luck.

 

[jtakeman]

First, this is great forum, I've spent a few hours this morning reading some great information,

My wife and I live in a rancher style home with our Master Bedroom and Bath Raised to a second level...we have 100% electric baeboard heating and deregulation is starting an we know our rates will be steadily rising over the next year due to changes in the electric company's pricing. We are considering two options for supplementing (hopefully drastically reducing) the use of the dependence of the electric for heat. Hoping you folks would maybe give me more insight to which is more wise in the long run and where to focus my research, oh and we live in Southeastern PA if that changes anything.

#1- we have the ability to put a pellet stove in the basement and use a "secondary" chimney that is available for venting. This would probably eliminate the use of the electric heat in the basement but would enough heat "rise" up into our main living level of the home? This location is about right in the center of the basement. Basement is finished (othan that painted concrete floors), basement ceiling is not insulated.

#2 - we could install a wood/pellet insert in our fireplace that is located on the main level, I would think this option would better heat the main level but would keep the basement cold and dependent on the electric. Also our TV is hung above the fireplace and we would like it to stay there, so if the insert would affect our TV is guess that option is out at this point.

There is another option if you must have a stove in the basement. Select one that excepts duct work or possibly one of the smaller furnaces(St Croix revolution or Fahrenheit Technologies Endurance) and actually heat both area's. The duct carries the heat upstairs and the stove body radiates enough heat to keep the basement warm. That's what is working for me and my all electric house. 2 birds one stone!

 

[StuartQF]

I have a well-insulated, 1100 sqft / floor split-level home.
I put a Europa 75 in the corner of my basement furthest away from my living room. It keeps the basement at 27c, my kitchen/living room at 25c, and the bedrooms above the stove at 24c. Best part is that all of the floors are nice and warm.

 

[FyreBug]

What is your budget? You could go for a pellet furnace, but then you would have to build an entire duct work system in your house. That's a big project.

There are a few units that allows you to re-distribute heat inside you house with a small ducting system. Ecotek is one of them. There is also Enerzone Euromax 70,000 BTU and Drolet ECO-65 65,000 BTU

http://www.drolet.ca/en/products/pellet/eco-65-pellet-stove

http://enerzone-intl.com/product.aspx?CategoId=5&Id=549

Both of them use the optional system below to distribute warm air. 25% of the heat is still kept by the machine while the rest is sent to the heat registers via the plenum kit.

Disclosure: I work for the company.

 

[jjs777_fzr]

Okay do I get flamed for even suggesting this ?

I almost fell over when I read you live in PA and perhaps you know what I am going to say already

Did you consider using America's #1 resource found in your neck of the woods ?

Coal.

Coal is very different heating than wood or pellets.
I own all three stove types and coal offers superior heating to wood or pellets. There's nothing like it.
Unfortunately the picture that often comes to mind when someone mentions coal is black smoke bellowing from a steam locomotive.
That's not the case with anthracite as it burns very clean. You will NOT see any smoke from a coal fired chimney.

Compared to a pellet stove coal radiates heat very well and the stack temperatures are much lower than that of a wood burner.

There are hand stoked coal stoves and then pellet-like stokers.

In PA you can likley get 1-ton of coal for under $200 (NEPA is a good forum..great folks).
you can assume 1ton of coal is at least 1.5 times the heat equivalent of 1ton of wood pellets.

Like I said I use all three...dependent on what I can source and for how much.
Since cost is a factor for me I use whatever is easily and cheaply available.