Two Stove Question

[ambull01]

Ashful also runs an oil boiler for baseline heat. In cold weather the stoves are sometimes supplemental.

It's hard to give you the best advice from 3000 miles away. A wood/gas or oil combo furnace might be a good solution, but there is no way I can tell remotely what it would take to duct it for best heating or most cost effective results. That's something that needs eyes on site for. Other things to consider with a furnace are convenience, is there a basement entrance for bringing in wood? How would it be safely vented? I am not a big fan of heating from the basement with a wood stove. Sometimes it works out, but often there is a lot of heat loss or a large imbalance in temperature. If the basement is uninsulated the heat loss will be significant.

I guess I would really need insulated ducts to make it effective. There's an external basement entrance. That could become a pain in the ass if I need to load the furnace a lot. I will insulate the basement regardless if I put a furnace in or not. Too many variables, my brain is overwhelmed right now.

 

[begreen]

Too many variables, my brain is overwhelmed right now.

I can totally dig that. It's why I suggested getting a few of the baseboard heaters working in the core of the house. That will buy you time and take some pressure off. During the spring or summer you can get some quotes for a ducted heating system.

What was the original primary heating system in the house?

 

[ambull01]

I can totally dig that. It's why I suggested getting a few of the baseboard heaters working in the core of the house. That will buy you time and take some pressure off. During the spring or summer you can get some quotes for a ducted heating system.

What was the original primary heating system in the house?

I have no idea. The house was built in 1891. There must have been some type of furnace in the basement. There's a propane line that's no longer in use near the old brick structure that I supposed was used for a chimney/outlet.

 

[begreen]

Yes, perhaps a big gravity coal furnace at one time? Is there a chimney with an outlet in the basement?

 

[Niko]

I gues a lot will depend on if you plan on living in this house for a long time. just read the whole thread and forgot somethings lol. The whole house was electric heat right, cause i read you had duct work also. I have thought for awhile also abt buying 2 stoves. My King can heat my whole house but at the cost of not being able to go downstairs it would be so dam hot. But members here have explained to me anlit insulating better.

I have spray foamed parts of my house with success but its not cheap. Easy to do use but messy . Next step is to spray foam the attic and seel all the air leaks. This is the key seal all air leaks up then you can use other types of insualtion. If you have air leaks it doent matter if you have 10 feet of insulation, cold air goes roght threw it. I think the biggest thing for your older place is no insualtion. A second stove which is awesome, but will also put more stress for your wife. A second stove tho can be done a lot faster and cheaper then insulating your whole house. But the insualtion will be good for all the seasons, this is why i mentioned above if you plan on living their for a long time.

I will say i wish BK made a 24-40 burn time furnace. Caaue i think i would of bought that and connectd it to my baseboard heating and left the boiler outside.

 

[Niko]

You check out a bunch of videos on spray foam existing walls etc.

 

[Ashful]

Yes, perhaps a big gravity coal furnace at one time? Is there a chimney with an outlet in the basement?

Yep, those were common here in the late 19th century, and I imagine in MD as well. They were usually built with ceiling-to-floor registers in each room to allow the heat to rise through the house. It is rare to find a house of that age with the registers still in tact, particularly after carpeting or skinning the old plaster ceilings with drywall.

 

[ambull01]

Yes, perhaps a big gravity coal furnace at one time? Is there a chimney with an outlet in the basement?

Yeah there's some kind of chimney structure in the basement. Towards the bottom of the brick structure there's what looks like a clean out door. Or maybe it was the discharge outlet that's been capped. I didn't really investigate it since it's so old and the bricks are falling apart. I didn't see any type of piping going up through the floor though so I'm not sure how it was discharged outside.

You check out a bunch of videos on spray foam existing walls etc.

Never heard of spray foam. I'll research that.

 

[OhioBurner©]

I ran two stoves for many years - still do but one is a pellet stove. IMO two stoves is a pita unless you can match up the burn times fairly well, and firebox sizes (same length firewood). With some of the options out there today with the long burning stoves this isn't quite as big of a deal but at the time I had two tube stoves and one had a burn time a bit shorter than I liked. If you're around all day to load several times I guess it can work, but if no one is home and stoves have to be loading at a certain time and last for a certain period of time it is harder to get them synced on the same time schedule. One always had more coals that I'd rather burn down for 2 more hours when the other had barely enough coals left and couldn't wait. Knowing what I know now with stoves that can easily last with only two loads per day, or even one, it is a bit easier to manage. I have debated swapping my pellet stove back to a woodburner like the BK or Woodstock. But the pellet stove is very convenient when it is running properly, in fact on those days I got to get up at 3:45 am for a long day at work, I can make sure its loaded before I go to bed and not even have to touch it in the morning and my only hassle is the one wood stove.

I dislike the idea of having solely a pellet stove, can't cook on it, won't work during power outages, more expensive fuel, fiddly parts to maintain and points of failure, noisy with all them fans and motors running, but when you're looking at a 2-stove house if the secondary stove is a pellet stove then lots of those problems go away since you do have the woodstove to cook on, for power outages, etc, and the pellet is more or less the secondary heater. Just something else to consider. It also evens the heat much better. I still use just one stove down to around freezing. Around freezing I turn both on but can run with them an a very low burn usually until it get down to 20 or less.

 

[tcassavaugh]

4 cords total? That's not bad at all. I was looking at homes in Chesapeake Beach before I decided on my insanely cold house. I'm about 15 minutes from the Bay Bridge.

well, there is a big firewood processing guy on 404, on the way out to ocean city....lol. he had a big pile of splits under his conveyor from the processor. i have a son out there so we run that way quite a bit. have some friends that live on kent island and out in wye mills that commute to springfield va or the fort. i run to springfield from the beach. used to go to the navy yard, right next to the marine bks but brac moved us to belvouir/springfield.
lots of old houses out there. here too. luckily, mine was built @ 82 so its not too bad.

 

[Ashful]

I ran two stoves for many years - still do but one is a pellet stove. IMO two stoves is a pita unless you can match up the burn times fairly well, and firebox sizes (same length firewood).

I had initially planned the same as you. One wood, one pellet, and I still see the beauty in that system. However, switching over to Blaze King was my first shot at finding two-stove sanity. I have marked settings on the thermostat of each stove, which give me very repeatable 12- and 24-hour burn times. I load one stove twice per day, set for 12-hour burns, and the other once per day.

Ashful also runs an oil boiler for baseline heat. In cold weather the stoves are sometimes supplemental.

I'm sitting at 5000 heating degree days per year, I suspect a good bit colder than the OP's location. Also, my house was already older than his house is today, in the year they built his house! They had all sorts of luxuries when they built his joint, like notions of insulation... and Portland cement.

But, as begreen has already pointed out here, I wouldn't be without central heating in a 3-story Victorian. We all have days we just can't feed the stove(s), and really, who wants to fuss with trying to get just the right amount of heat into a house like this in all sorts of weather? I just keep my two stoves going on 12- and 24-hour cycles, which roughly meets my baseline heat load in all but the coldest parts of winter. Yes, when we get those stretches in the teens or single digits, my boiler runs. But I don't care, since I've already cut my heating bill to a third of it's typical annual rate, by having these stoves churning since October. My house stays at (or typically two degrees above) the temperature set on my thermostats, and I don't deal with coming home to a cold house on those few days the stove couldn't keep up.

4 cords total? That's not bad at all. I was looking at homes in Chesapeake Beach before I decided on my insanely cold house. I'm about 15 minutes from the Bay Bridge.

Per stove? You're going to be going thru more than four cords, if you step up to two stoves.

 

[ambull01]

I had initially planned the same as you. One wood, one pellet, and I still see the beauty in that system. However, switching over to Blaze King was my first shot at finding two-stove sanity. I have marked settings on the thermostat of each stove, which give me very repeatable 12- and 24-hour burn times. I load one stove twice per day, set for 12-hour burns, and the other once per day.


I'm sitting at 5000 heating degree days per year, I suspect a good bit colder than the OP's location. Also, my house was already older than his house is today, in the year they built his house! They had all sorts of luxuries when they built his joint, like notions of insulation... and Portland cement.

But, as begreen has already pointed out here, I wouldn't be without central heating in a 3-story Victorian. We all have days we just can't feed the stove(s), and really, who wants to fuss with trying to get just the right amount of heat into a house like this in all sorts of weather? I just keep my two stoves going on 12- and 24-hour cycles, which roughly meets my baseline heat load in all but the coldest parts of winter. Yes, when we get those stretches in the teens or single digits, my boiler runs. But I don't care, since I've already cut my heating bill to a third of it's typical annual rate, by having these stoves churning since October. My house stays at (or typically two degrees above) the temperature set on my thermostats, and I don't deal with coming home to a cold house on those few days the stove couldn't keep up.


Per stove? You're going to be going thru more than four cords, if you step up to two stoves.

I guess I should I look into a dual electric/wood furnace to ensure it will be able to run all the time. I'll also hook up the electric baseboards again when I return.

I'm debating on putting in rigid foam board insulation on the exterior walls internally. I guess it would be a monumental task to do that on your house but have you done anything to insulate your walls?

I ran two stoves for many years - still do but one is a pellet stove. IMO two stoves is a pita unless you can match up the burn times fairly well, and firebox sizes (same length firewood). With some of the options out there today with the long burning stoves this isn't quite as big of a deal but at the time I had two tube stoves and one had a burn time a bit shorter than I liked. If you're around all day to load several times I guess it can work, but if no one is home and stoves have to be loading at a certain time and last for a certain period of time it is harder to get them synced on the same time schedule. One always had more coals that I'd rather burn down for 2 more hours when the other had barely enough coals left and couldn't wait. Knowing what I know now with stoves that can easily last with only two loads per day, or even one, it is a bit easier to manage. I have debated swapping my pellet stove back to a woodburner like the BK or Woodstock. But the pellet stove is very convenient when it is running properly, in fact on those days I got to get up at 3:45 am for a long day at work, I can make sure its loaded before I go to bed and not even have to touch it in the morning and my only hassle is the one wood stove.

I dislike the idea of having solely a pellet stove, can't cook on it, won't work during power outages, more expensive fuel, fiddly parts to maintain and points of failure, noisy with all them fans and motors running, but when you're looking at a 2-stove house if the secondary stove is a pellet stove then lots of those problems go away since you do have the woodstove to cook on, for power outages, etc, and the pellet is more or less the secondary heater. Just something else to consider. It also evens the heat much better. I still use just one stove down to around freezing. Around freezing I turn both on but can run with them an a very low burn usually until it get down to 20 or less.

Pellet stove sounds interesting. I'll research it. Thanks

 

[Woody Stover]

Pellet stove sounds interesting. I'll research it. Thanks

Noisy, but you may be able to put it somewhere where it won't bother you too much. A bit of maintenance with cleaning parts as well, I understand.

 

[ambull01]

Noisy, but you may be able to put it somewhere where it won't bother you too much. A bit of maintenance with cleaning parts as well, I understand.

The only issue with a pellet stove is it will make my argument as to why I have 4 chainsaws a bit obsolete. Told my wife I needed at least two chainsaws because one is for bucking and the other is for limbing. Thankfully my wife has no idea that my bucking and limbing chainsaws are both about 60 cc and weight about the same. I bought a Echo EVL900 that I hope to fix and an old Poulan.

Having to buy pellets also kind of eliminates my goal of relatively free heat. Also have no idea where to buy wood pellets but that's an easy fix.

 

[jetsam]

I'm debating on putting in rigid foam board insulation on the exterior walls internally. I guess it would be a monumental task to do that on your house but have you done anything to insulate your walls?

Ashful hired a crew to do that exact thing, but the priest and the mop-bucket operator keep walking off the job, so it's still not insulated...

 

[Ashful]

I'm debating on putting in rigid foam board insulation on the exterior walls internally. I guess it would be a monumental task to do that on your house but have you done anything to insulate your walls?

My old house, which was of similar age to yours, was insulated this way. A prior owner had covered all internal walls with blue rigid foam board, taped all seams, and installed vertical furring strips as drywall attachment points using Tapcons thru the foam board into the masonry. It meant giving up a few inches off each room, but it did the job. In that case, all windows were box-welled with paneling, and they were replacing all windows anyway, so it was just an issue of doing new window well trim for each window to match the new wall thickness.

My current house is a little more historically significant, and the window wells are plastered, so this would be a much bigger modification to the historical properties of the house. Like all prior owners, we decided to leave it original, and just deal with the heating costs. Who am I to change it, when 250 years' worth of prior owners left it alone? So much detail and understanding about how things used to be built have been lost this way.

The only issue with a pellet stove is it will make my argument as to why I have 4 chainsaws a bit obsolete. Told my wife I needed at least two chainsaws because one is for bucking and the other is for limbing. Thankfully my wife has no idea that my bucking and limbing chainsaws are both about 60 cc and weight about the same. I bought a Echo EVL900 that I hope to fix and an old Poulan.

I assume you're joking, but if not, you're thinking small. Old Echos and Poulans shouldn't even be a factor in the decision, as their value is small compared to your annual heating costs, especially if amortized over 3 - 5 years.

 

[Woody Stover]

I assume you're joking

I can see his tongue in his cheek from here.

 

[ambull01]

My old house, which was of similar age to yours, was insulated this way. A prior owner had covered all internal walls with blue rigid foam board, taped all seams, and installed vertical furring strips as drywall attachment points using Tapcons thru the foam board into the masonry. It meant giving up a few inches off each room, but it did the job. In that case, all windows were box-welled with paneling, and they were replacing all windows anyway, so it was just an issue of doing new window well trim for each window to match the new wall thickness.

My current house is a little more historically significant, and the window wells are plastered, so this would be a much bigger modification to the historical properties of the house. Like all prior owners, we decided to leave it original, and just deal with the heating costs. Who am I to change it, when 250 years' worth of prior owners left it alone? So much detail and understanding about how things used to be built have been lost this way.


I assume you're joking, but if not, you're thinking small. Old Echos and Poulans shouldn't even be a factor in the decision, as their value is small compared to your annual heating costs, especially if amortized over 3 - 5 years.

Damn, I'm totally lost on what a lot of that means. Never heard of furring strips, Tapcons, etc. I need to buy a home improvement for dummies book. I've actually spent a LOT of time thinking how the hell do I install the insulation along my windows. I'm going to look up box-welled.

I was totally joking about the chainsaws.

 

[Woody Stover]

ever heard of furring strips, Tapcons, etc. I need to buy a home improvement for dummies book.

Then you'll pore over much info on the internet, after that comes paralysis by analysis.

 

[heavy hammer]

I run two stoves and love it. The basement stove by itself will heat the whole house on the cooler days. The upstairs stove can easily heat the upstairs,but with a finished basement if the basement stove is not fired up it doesn't get any heat. It is more work and more wood. I'm heating 4000 sq feet easily but every situation is different. I also have a oil furnace in case were not home stoves go out etc. I also have access to free wood with my job. I do agree with begreen, get the baseboards fixed, but I would still get a second stove or wood furnace. It's always better to have a backup. If you ever get tired of burning at least you can still heat your house.

 

[jetsam]

Damn, I'm totally lost on what a lot of that means. Never heard of furring strips, Tapcons,.

My old house, which was of similar age to yours, was insulated this way. A prior owner had covered all internal walls with blue rigid foam board, taped all seams, and installed vertical furring strips as drywall attachment points using Tapcons thru the foam board into the masonry.

So he had stone walls and wanted to insulate them, but couldn't get the fiberglass to stay standing up against the wall. (*rim shot*).

He bought rigid insulation, which comes in 4x8 or 2x8 sheets, and can be around R10 at 2" thick. He put that up on the walls for insulation, but it's easily damaged and doesn't take paint well, so he wanted to cover it with drywall so he coud have a nice finished wall. He took some probably 1"x3"x8' pine strips and stood them vertically, and screwed them through the pine, through the foam board, through the plaster, and into the masonry wall. Tapcon is a brand of screw; they are best known for their lighy duty super easy direct-to-masonry fasteners, but they make all kinds of screws. Their masonry screws look a lot like like a blue or white Philips head screw with a funky threading. You drill a hole a little smaller than the screw in the masonry and then just screw that puppy in like it's going into wood. Easy, but not intended for heavy loads. Then he screwed drywall to the 1x3 like they were studs, using short screws that wouldn't go through far enough to hit the masonry.

It meant giving up a few inches off each room, but it did the job. In that case, all windows were box-welled with paneling, and they were replacing all windows anyway, so it was just an issue of doing new window well trim for each window to match the new wall thickness.

He lost a few inches because he added the thickness of the foam board (1/2" to 2" probably) plus the thickness of the 1x3, probably around 5/8", plus the thickness of the drywall, probably 1/2". Note that in your case you would be moving every one of those electric baseboards that is on an exterior wall to accommodate this.

The windows he put in probably had a jamb for a 2x4 wall; his masonry wall may have been a foot thick. Rather than having the hole in the stones with a window jamb sitting on it, they boxed out the hole (probably to the size of what windows were locally available for cheap, or to the size of whatever they had left on the truck from the last job), and paneled the inside of the box. You're left with a nice paneled rectangle that goes through your wall; slap in the window and put a piece of quarter round around it, and it looks okay.

 

[ambull01]

So he had stone walls and wanted to insulate them, but couldn't get the fiberglass to stay standing up against the wall. (*rim shot*).

He bought rigid insulation, which comes in 4x8 or 2x8 sheets, and can be around R10 at 2" thick. He put that up on the walls for insulation, but it's easily damaged and doesn't take paint well, so he wanted to cover it with drywall so he coud have a nice finished wall. He took some probably 1"x3"x8' pine strips and stood them vertically, and screwed them through the pine, through the foam board, through the plaster, and into the masonry wall. Tapcon is a brand of screw; they are best known for their lighy duty super easy direct-to-masonry fasteners, but they make all kinds of screws. Their masonry screws look a lot like like a blue or white Philips head screw with a funky threading. You drill a hole a little smaller than the screw in the masonry and then just screw that puppy in like it's going into wood. Easy, but not intended for heavy loads. Then he screwed drywall to the 1x3 like they were studs, using short screws that wouldn't go through far enough to hit the masonry.



He lost a few inches because he added the thickness of the foam board (1/2" to 2" probably) plus the thickness of the 1x3, probably around 5/8", plus the thickness of the drywall, probably 1/2". Note that in your case you would be moving every one of those electric baseboards that is on an exterior wall to accommodate this.

The windows he put in probably had a jamb for a 2x4 wall; his masonry wall may have been a foot thick. Rather than having the hole in the stones with a window jamb sitting on it, they boxed out the hole (probably to the size of what windows were locally available for cheap, or to the size of whatever they had left on the truck from the last job), and paneled the inside of the box. You're left with a nice paneled rectangle that goes through your wall; slap in the window and put a piece of quarter round around it, and it looks okay.

Holy crap, sounds way too complicated. I may ditch my wall insulation plan. I'm trying to read up on the stack effect. Sounds like most heat is lost through the roof/upper level, especially if there's cold air coming in through the basement/crawlspace/leaks.

 

[jetsam]

Holy crap, sounds way too complicated. I may ditch my wall insulation plan. I'm trying to read up on the stack effect. Sounds like most heat is lost through the roof/upper level, especially if there's cold air coming in through the basement/crawlspace/leaks.

Well, it is not a bad idea to tackle the easiest stuff first and then see how you stand. Sounds like you're doing a good job educating yourself.