Tri-Level home owners...where to put the stove? / basement stove guys....

[Dustin]

I have gotten some great info so far, just putting it out there to see if anyone has one.


I have a Tri-Level ranch home with an interior chimney. These were popular in the 1960's / 70's. Mine was built in 1969.


I have a fireplace hearth on the main floor, and a fireplace hearth downstairs. The downstairs with the daylight finished basement style, it gets damn cold down there during the winters. half of it is underground


Those of you with a tri-level like mine, where did you put your stove? If it's downstairs, were you able to heat the entire house without roasting out the downstairs?

 

[begreen]

A tri-level can be more favorable to a lower level installation than some basement setups. Usually tri-levels have large open stairways of only 6-7 steps separating the levels. With a well placed stove, the heat can easily migrate to the upper levels. It may take a fan or two to assist airflow around the individual level, but I'd try for the lower level first and see how it works out for the rest of the house. The bedrooms on the highest level might be a bit cooler, but in my book, that's a good thing.

 

[Dustin]

If I do this, I think i can put a free standing stove down there. I'll have to do some hearth work.


Second question, to those who are reading this. I really want a free standing stove, with a blower, but will the insert move the heat better? Seems like the inserts cost a little more coin...


I really want a cat stove, but the biggest free standing cat I can find is the blazeking, and it takes an 8 inch flue, not sure i want to line my chimney with an 8 inch liner...

 

[rydaddy]

I would put a freestanding wood stove in the basement. Which one? That is the toughest part of the equation. Check your flue size to see if you can even get a 8" liner in there and that will help you weed out some choices. I know there are people here that are using inserts and happy with them. I think the consensus is that more heat radiates off of a free-standing unit. I would imagine that inserts require less "hearth" renovation. My first choice years ago was the Hearthstone Clydesdale, I would of had to wait 6 weeks and it actually cost more than the Heritage. So I added to the hearth and went with the stove.

 

[Dix]

You have an interior chimney. That makes a world of differance, IMHO.

 

[Redox]

By tri-level, do you mean that each level is either half a flight up or half a flight down? Round these parts, we call that a split level.

We have a really weird house in that from the street, it looks like a two story colonial with a full basement, but is split front to back to actually form 5 levels. The floors are separated by a half flight of steps up and down with iron railings that leaves a huge open stairway right in the center of the house. Our stove is on the second level in the walk out basement FR and heats the ceiling of the bedroom above it. Much of the heat leaks up the stairs to warm the floors of the top level. In all but the coldest weather around here, this warms the entire house very nicely. Without fans, there will only be a 10 degree difference between the family room (where the stove is) and the top level. I can even that out a bit if I run the fan on the furnace. I never would have thought it would work so well, but sitting in a chair at the bottom of the steps, you can really feel the cold air pouring down into the basement FR. It works pretty good, I'd say.

Originally, we had an insert in a crumbling masonry fireplace in the FR. It worked fairly well, but we demo'ed it an put in a class A chimney through the one bedroom and out close to the peak. This ended all the problems with downdrafts, both inside and out. We still have a fireplace in the living room, but have never used it. I've thought about putting an insert in there for really cold weather, but it isn't very high up on the list of priorities. The one stove is doing a great job and we're burning enough wood to keep me happy and the furnace off 80% of the time.

Chris

 

[Dustin]

Well i'm in from the wood pile!

My house is a "split level" as you would call it around those parts, half a flight of stairs to get form downstairs, to the mid level, then another half flight to get upstairs. The upstairs bedrooms sit directly about the room I want to put the stove in.


Here is another question for everyone. I'm looking at stoves, trying to decide which one. Like I said, 1700 square foot house. Right now, I'm between a PE Summit, the BIG englander, and a Blazeking Classic, (the giant one)


I just went downstairs and measured the stove room. It's 12x20 with a normal sized doorway that opens right into the stairway. Also, there is another bedroom and a utility room down there.


Will these stoves make it way to hot to even be in that room?? Or, should the house do the "chimney effect" and suck the heat out of that room, and send it upstairs?

 

[begreen]

The normal sized doorway may be a problem with a big stove in this room. It will likely get much hotter there. This can be mitigated somewhat with a fan blowing into cooler air into the room, but enlarging that opening, if possible, may be more effective.

 

[Dustin]

Be Green, do ya think a T-6, or a Summit might be over-kill for this house? The reason i'm looking for a big stove, is I like LOONNG burn times, thats what makes the blaze king so attractive.

 

[begreen]

I can speak for the T6 and don't think it would be too much for the house. But getting the heat out of the bottom level room sounds like it could be an issue. If the door could be removed and the wall opened up so that there is a large 6-8' wide x 8' high opening to the stairway, then I would say have at it with the big guy. You can run half-loads of wood in it and still get a clean burn. Even with the T6 wide open we have not been driven out of the living room. I don't know about the Blaze King personally, but reports are they run fine at a lower burn for a long time. The Princess might be a good compromise, especially if the regular door has to stay.

 

[Dustin]

The door can be removed, I think it would be neat to have double doors right there anyway, or no door, just an entry way.


Anywho,I forgot to mention. The stove will sit approximatley 6 to 7 feet from the door opening, so it's pretty close to the stairwell.

 

[begreen]

If the heat can naturally convect out of the room, then a Summit, T6 or BlazeKing Princess should work ok.

 

[Prada]

Our last home was a split. We had one of those older Free Standing stoves that looked like a cone with nothing but a screen in front of it on the lower level. We opened the normal doorway like BeGreen is suggesting to a double size open archway. The heat from that room traveled right up the 2 flights of stairs to the other area's quite well.
Hubby installed a Return Vent in the ceiling of the room down where the stove was and would turn the furnace fan on to circulate some of the ceiling heat from that room to the upstairs rooms also.
He would BLOCK the upstairs Return Vents off during the winter and that helped to keep nothing but the warm air from the ceiling of the Stove room to come out the warm air registers upstairs. If he would not have blocked the Return Vents off upstairs,the cold air from upstairs and the hot air from downstairs would have had to mix in the furnace venting system and that would have cooled it down before it was able to travel up and out the upstairs warm air registers. It did help a lot with heat distribution.