Planning to remodel basement -- tips and suggestions on a heat source?

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dosstx

New Member
Dec 13, 2019
2
STL
Hello, I am planning a basement remodel in St. Louis, Mo. The house (built in 1920s) has an unfinished basement of about 780sqft (26x30). There is no heating or cooling in the basement, and it stays cool during the summers. However, during the winter the basement temperature can drop to a minimum of around 55-60. I'd like to make the basement more comfortable to use and am thinking of starting with the basic fixes like insulating around the rim joists, covering the floors with thick rugs (we get occasional water issues), and adding better insulated windows. Now, how should I heat the basement? I am thinking of opening a register in the HVAC duct to help heat the basement (I will of course get opinions from HVAC experts about this), but we do occassionally get a power outage in this old town, especially during the winters. This means no electricity...and we currently do not have a gas or non-electric heat source. I was thinking of adding a fireplace of some sort in the basement. Would some kind of ventless gas fireplace be a good idea for the basement ? Any tips or advice from the gurus here? Thanks!
 
Plan on insulating the basement walls as well as the rim joist. Otherwise you will be heating nature and losing up to a third of the heat through the walls. If you go with gas, install a vented unit.
 
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Is the basement an open space or are there rooms? What is currently heating the house?
 
One option would be to have a separate zone off the gas furnace created for the basement using a thermostatically controlled damper. That way the basement could have its own thermostat
 
There are a couple ways to heat it. It depends on what you want. Could do what begreen mentions, use existing furnace. Could do a vented gas fireplace/stove. Could just get a space heater, some of the electric fireplaces look nice and produce decent heat. Could install a smaller wood stove.
 
I’m the self conceptualization phase of my downstairs remodel of a garage. The other half is finished with a masonry fireplace. About 1100 sq ft in total. I haven’t decided how to will be divided up yet.
I few up in a house with a finished basement and gas furnace. It was always colder than the first floor. It didn’t help things that we put a spiral staircase right in the middle. Of the biggest basement room. It was great during the summer and tolerable in the winter.

Having a gas furnace you could probably heat it if it was insulated. Just adding a few registers in existing ducts. Closing down the upstairs vents might help balance the heat. I’m deciding between a mini split heat pump and a wood burning insert or modify the current heat pump ducting. Wood burning seems like a lot of extra work and I’m not sure how well the other rooms would be heated as the open stairs are closer to the stove than the rooms. Complicating my issue is that when it gets below 25F here the heat pump just can’t keep up.
So in the end I probably won’t do anything this year but insulate and May add a couple registers.

Insulation and moisture management for a basement are super important and I haven’t found what I see as the best solution yet for my climate. I do like the idea of concrete wall, vapor barrier, insulation board mounted to wall stud walls with cavities filled with insulation, and finished with another vapor barrier. It seems like overkill for my climate but I like the concept.
I vote use the current furnace. If you want backup heat figure out if you can run it on a portable generator.

evan
 
One option would be to have a separate zone off the gas furnace created for the basement using a thermostatically controlled damper. That way the basement could have its own thermostat
This is exactly what I did in my basement. If I'm having company over or am planning on being in the basement in winter I can set the temp, (and cringe as propane gets burned).
 
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If you have the height consider installing insulation of the floor and floating flooring system.