Recommendations and help

[swiggyswag]

My wife and I moved into a house before last winter. It is roughly a 1000 sq ft ranch in northeastern Ohio. The person who had the house before us replaced the oil furnace with an electric forced air furnace. We do not have natural gas where we live. I’m looking to switch to a pellet stove because for the price it cost to run the electric furnace we never feel warm. I have insulated the attic to modern standards and the house in the not so far past had been resided with insulation added, etc. I was thinking about adding a pellet stove in the living room and heating the house from there. However, I also had the thought because we do laundry and other things in the basement (air hockey, weight bench, hopefully an indoor archery area soon, etc.) I would like to try to heat the basement too. The basement is not finished, however it is professional waterproofed and I would like to finish it someday soon. The basement is full and is the same length and width of the upstairs and open. I wanted to know if I should/could either add a pellet stove in the basement and either use the already cut return floor registers and heat the basement and the house with 1 stove. A ~2000 sq ft pellet stove or if it would be better to just heat the house from the living room with a smaller stove. I uploaded a little diagram of the layout of the house. There is a 1/2 bath in the back bedroom and random closets but I didn't include those. I'll try to add some actual photos today too. I appreciate any help, suggestions, thoughts, knowledge transfer, etc. Also, no in the picture, the kitchen has two open doorways to the living room area, on on each side and a door to the landing for the stairs.

 

[alternativeheat]

People do heat the main floor from a basement installed stove. The general course of action would be to basically overheat the basement to bring the upper level to an acceptable level. "Acceptable level" may or may not be to your desired intent. Some folks have installed two smaller stoves which allows for regulation of both levels FWIW. Barring that and or not willing to gamble on the upper level result of a basement install then generally it's advisable to install the stove where you want to be most comfortable, noting that heat will not drop to the lower level if you heat upstairs only..

With all that said, there have been reports of people perfectly content with a basement install only. Generally that requires that the basement door be left open 24/7 and that the house in general has cooperative air flow. I can't tell you if your house meets the needs required but it has to be better than mine ( 1800 sq ft not overly tight Cape) in which the basement approach doesn't work. Our stove is in the living room and overall the house is heated quite well with a single p61a Harman.

 

[swiggyswag]

Thank you very much for the reply and information. Oddly enough I talked to the neighbor today because it looked like he needed some help unloading a pallet of dirt. Turns out it was a pallet of pellet fuel. I asked him about it, him and his wife moved into their house 6 months or so before us and they switched to a pellet stove 2 months ago and love it. It is in their living room and he said it is a million times better than their expensive electric furnace. Looks like this is what I will be doing and I'm going to put it in the living room. I guess ill just not worry about the basement right now and if I do finish it I will deal with it then. Thanks for all the help. Now just need to figure out which one to get. Brand, sq ft, ash pan or not, etc.

 

[alternativeheat]

You will get about as many recommendations on stove brands as there are brands !! lol.

I can only say that my wife and I looked at a lot of brands and models within brands, asked a lot of questions and it came down to Harman for us. Based that on reliability and ease of general maintenance and not including purchase price. We wanted to make just one purchase and not repeat the experience. After all our research and taking our time we came down to the P61a. With three winters under our belts now, I can say it looks like we made the right choice. But many others will tell you they made the right choice for them too ! Anyway, you should have 0 problems heating 1000sq ft on one floor with just about any pellet stove. I can tell you that my choice would be a small Harman, probably a P43.

 

[adayrider]

I heated my new 1630 sf ranch from the unfinished basement this winter in northeastern Ohio. We only had a few weeks of single digits this year. I just set the electric furnace to 69 and turn up the corn burner to medium. in the times we are home. The furnace runs very little, doesn't cost much and I have a warm dry basement and warm upstairs.

 

[johneh]

The one thing to remember about a pellet stove is that it is a space heater .
There was a central heating system installed then why not go to a pellet
furnace which is made to heat a whole house .

 

[bogieb]

If you do go with a pellet stove in the living area - try to place it centered on the wall on the right of your picture so when the stove fan is on, it pushes the air down that hallway and to the bedrooms. It may not seem like a big deal to put it in one of those corners, but I can tell you from experience it I a huge improvement. I went from a corner install with a Hastings that was pointed at another corner in my living room and I had to use several fans to get the heat down the hallway. I could keep the bedrooms warm, but the house was very noisy even when the stove wasn't going.

When I got the P43 to replace the Hastings, I had just enough clearance to turn it so the back was parallel to the wall behind it, and the airstream is pointed straight down the hallway. I don't have to use any other fans at all now.



Alternately, for a corner install, the corner in the upper right of your picture should enable you to angle the airstream toward that hallway if you can't place it on that side wall.

 

[alternativeheat]

Bogieb is right ( good additional points Bogie !) and I didn't even think to address this in my other posts. But in assessing your diagram yesterday I too thought of a centered install in that room that would have the distribution fan blowing hot air down the hall as well.

In my house my stove is installed centered in the living room on the old fireplace hearth on the west wall. But that directs air right to our stairway upstairs. One nice thing about a P series Harman that you don't get in all pellet stoves is they both radiate heat and blow heat. My living room has two entrances, the one leading to the front entry and up the stair way upstairs and the other out to the dining room and the whole south side of the house. I'd say radiated heat mostly heat over toward the dining room just as it used to with our old coal stove. But blown heat gets everything out in front of the stove, including that stair way. Well anyway, just sayin !

 

[bogieb]

Bogieb is right ( good additional points Bogie !) and I didn't even think to address this in my other posts. But in assessing your diagram yesterday I too thought of a centered install in that room that would have the distribution fan blowing hot air down the hall as well.

In my house my stove is installed centered in the living room on the old fireplace hearth on the west wall. But that directs air right to our stairway upstairs. One nice thing about a P series Harman that you don't get in all pellet stoves is they both radiate heat and blow heat. My living room has two entrances, the one leading to the front entry and up the stair way upstairs and the other out to the dining room and the whole south side of the house. I'd say radiated heat mostly heat over toward the dining room just as it used to with our old coal stove. But blown heat gets everything out in front of the stove, including that stair way. Well anyway, just sayin !

Funny, I was thinking as I was waking up (convincing myself to get out of bed) that I should have said that even though it looks like all the heat gets blown down the hall, the Harman radiates heat which warms up the living room nicely and it also radiates some in the kitchen thru the doorway.

 

[alternativeheat]

Bogie, it's snowing out here, utter ugliness ! It's 40 deg out besides.

But yeah, that radiating factor was one key point in leading us to a P series choice. And in the colder weather when the stove is cranked a bit more than now it's a significant radiating heat source too. I'm sure other all steel stoves probably do this as well but the Harman P and it's simple design for cleaning etc is one winner for certain. I have this full cleaning down to about 15 minutes even since my knee surgery ( minus my 23 ft 4" vertical vent, that I clean twice annually). The other stove we looked at hard was a St Croix Prescott. The dealer said the Prescott would take a bit more detailed and more frequent cleanings.

 

[bogieb]

When I had the St. Croix Hastings, I had to clean every week as it has a much smaller ash pan. Cleaned out clinkers everyday (which meant shutting the stove down so there was no flame). Also, had a lot of small passages that to be cleaned - a PIA. Did run really well once I got the damper set (which had to be set again if I changed pellets), and it did the job, but I much prefer the P43 that took its place.

 

[adayrider]

Thats funny, cause I have a St Croix Lancaster and haven't cleaned it but maybe 3 times this year while burning corn. Ash pan is fairly small in the Lancaster, but with corn all I do is open ash pan pull previous clinker out and drop new hot one in its spot till next day or two then repeat. The St Croix has nice set up that does not require shutting stove off to drop clinker, not sure what you were doing wrong but I haven't shut mine down for 1 second for well over a month. I have never adjusted my damper, it has been wide open since day one. In fact mine is rusted enough that you can't adjust it. I might be loosing a little bit of heat out the stack but after 12 years and only 1 combustion fan, 1 convection fan, and 1 set of bearings on convection fan I won't complain.

 

[alternativeheat]

Well no question that St Croix makes a nice stove too, Harman isn't the only game in town !

 

[jzm2cc]

Look at St Croix Prescott EXP as a similar stove to P series Harman. Ours is a 24/7 heater, only needs fire pot scrapped once every two weeks. We do dump ash pan every weekend out of habit, and this can be done with stove running. Leaf blower on exhaust once a month keeps internal passages from clogging up. I've had a XXV, Accentra, PC-45, and P61A previously, but will keep the Prescott based on efficiency, cost, performance, and looks. Everyone has an opinion on their favorite brand/model. Good luck.

 

[alternativeheat]

St Croix efficiency seems to be a fact, possibly a tad more efficient than a P series Harman. Or more so than a P61 anyway.

Possibly the type of fuel and that wide open damper is saying more about burn pot scraping timing than the stove itself though. And I bet if you trimmed back that damper you would get even more heat and efficiency from the stove. i don't own a St Croix but have seen enough posters exclaim the importance of a properly set damper on them for max heat and efficiency.

 

[bogieb]

Thats funny, cause I have a St Croix Lancaster and haven't cleaned it but maybe 3 times this year while burning corn. Ash pan is fairly small in the Lancaster, but with corn all I do is open ash pan pull previous clinker out and drop new hot one in its spot till next day or two then repeat. The St Croix has nice set up that does not require shutting stove off to drop clinker, not sure what you were doing wrong but I haven't shut mine down for 1 second for well over a month. I have never adjusted my damper, it has been wide open since day one. In fact mine is rusted enough that you can't adjust it. I might be loosing a little bit of heat out the stack but after 12 years and only 1 combustion fan, 1 convection fan, and 1 set of bearings on convection fan I won't complain.

Corn needs more air than pellets I believe. And certainly couldn't have the damper wide open - the pellets wouldn't have stayed in the pot to burn. A lot of people say to start setting the damper with a pencil, then make minute adjustments from there (pellet burning).

Not denying that St. Croix makes a good stove. If I hadn't stumbled on such a great deal for the P43, I wouldn't have replaced the Hastings.

 

[adayrider]

Was it 2008 or so that corn was so high that I burnt 4 ton of straight pellets from TSC. Definitely more ash, no real clinkers like you get with corn for sure. I still did not adjust the draft though. I have never scrapped my pot either. Man I knew I was laze but you guys make me realize just how lazy I am. I do know that with my St Croix, the length of exhaust pipe plays a big rule in how well it performs. Not sure if all brands are like that. I would not attempt to run pipe over 10-12 feet. I don't run any type of brush through mine either, I just bang on it every couple weeks and dislodges the ash build up and blows it out the end. I do take the stack out once every summer and clean it and replace every 2 or 3 years because corn is acidic it will rust out.

 

[alternativeheat]

All brands have a minimum specification on venting and a maximum run, especially horizontally, for a given diameter vent.

Around these parts corn is not a viable option, and the p61 will burn a 50/50 mix corn to pellets. But corn is just way too costly here.