Too hot! Should I insulate the ceiling of my furnace room?

[Badfish740]

I have an Englander 28-3500 which is tied into my ductwork and heats my 1000 SF ranch. The Englander is in the basement right next to the oil furnace which was the most convenient place because there was a basement window right behind it. I bricked up the window with a thimble in the middle and was able to run my flue right out the side of the house. It's a great setup with one drawback-on the colder nights (sub 20 degree temperatures) I really have to pull out the big guns (high BTU hardwoods) and load up the furnace to keep the house warm through the night because its an older house and I've not yet begun to do much insulating/air sealing. It did a great job the night before last when it dipped to 12 °F, but that comes at a price. Our bedroom is directly above the furnace room and the radiant heat coming off of it rises through the floor and cooks the bedroom. I close off the register in the room at the beginning of the season because we don't need the heated air since there is so much radiant heat coming through the floor. I went way overkill on the install too-double wall stove pipe in the house, a 4' x 4' Durock heatshield mounted on the ceiling above the furnace with a 3" air gap between the shield and the ceiling joists, etc... There is also an outside air vent incorporated into the old window opening via a louver that I installed to make sure that the furnace always got enough air.

On Tuesday night (12 degrees) at 4:00 a.m. the rest of the house was a comfortable 72 but the room was 76-needless to say the wife was not happy :red: We even had a window cracked in the room. I suppose we could try them wide open, but that also doesn't help with retaining humidity on cold dry nights. We have a humidifier that runs all night in our room or else we wake up with our eyelids stuck closed :lol: I wonder if the better solution is to insulate the ceiling in the furnace room in an effort to keep the heat out of the bedroom?

 

[woodsmaster]

Seems like that would be a good fix to me.

 

[bluedogz]

+1 on a few rolls of fiberglass batt... won't be too expensive whether it works or not.

 

[SolarAndWood]

Do you need the heat in the furnace room? Once you insulate the floor, is there any way to get the heat where it would be useful?

 

[Badfish740]

Do you need the heat in the furnace room? Once you insulate the floor, is there any way to get the heat where it would be useful?

When I say "furnace room" I really mean a corner of the basement that is walled on three sides. Two of the walls are the outside foundation walls and the third wall is a partition between the finished and non-finished part of the basement. The non finished side gets a decent amount of heat from the furnace, but I suppose it might be a good to put one of those in wall fans in the partition wall to help circulate heat over to that side. We do need the heat on the unfinished side too though as all of the plumbing is down there, the washing machine, etc...so it is good that we get so much radiant heat off of the furnace. The unfinished side is a pretty much constant 75 degrees with the furnace running at full tilt while the finished side is usually about 70-72.

 

[maple1]

Lots of fan talk lately - might apply here too.

The insulation might be a solution - might be easier though just to get a fan or two to try for now. Could either set one on the floor outside your furnace room, blowing cooler air towards the furnace, or set one on the floor outside your bedroom, blowing cooler air towards the bedroom. Or both?

 

[Gasifier]

I like the idea of insulating in between the floor joist, then covering, as best you can with sheetrock. 5/8" would be best to give you some fire rating at least. I know it would probably be a pain in the a@@ to sheetrock, but you would be surprised how much heat it would deflect. Then go with the fan as well to push the heat around he basement and let it come up the stairs. We keep the upstairs thermometer at 67, where the bedrooms are. I sleep so much better when it is cooler and I am under a sheet and blanket. Sooooo much better. Good luck with it, and let us know which way you decide to go and how it works for ya. Have a good one.