Hello Everyone.
My wife and I recently bought a log cabin in the greater Seattle area. We are very happy with the cabin and there are no bad surprises. We knew from the beginning that the heating system is something we want to change.
The cabin:
The cabin sits on a concrete basement and has two stories, so three stories in total and about 3,000 sqf almost evenly spaced over the three floors, so about 1,000 sqf per floor. The basement is divided in three rooms. The ground floor hosts the living room right at the main entrance with a den on the side. The living room is open above with the staircase going up/down. Also kitchen, dining room, a bathroom as well as a pantry is located on the ground floor.
The upstairs has 4 bedrooms, a bathroom as well as the master bathroom/walk in closet. See floor plan below.
![[Hearth.com] updating heating system in a log cabin](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/259/259331-808f1e7084541709cf490c9e73e5b4d7.jpg?hash=wU5rNVMRdf "[Hearth.com] updating heating system in a log cabin")
The current heating system:
Currently there is a Propane space heater in the basement, next to the basement door. There is a gas fireplace in the living room which acts as the main heat source and a small propane stove in the dining room for additional heating. additional there are baseboard heaters (which most of them don't work).
The problem:
The back room in the basement can get quite humid as there is no ventilation, also the propane space heater produces a lot of humidity. The gas stove in the living room, which acts as primary heat source is undersized for the house I think. currently it doesn't get overly cold at night but it cant keep up with heating and runs all night. It also is quite noisy (I already cleaned the fan from an infestation of dog hair, but there might be more in there). As the stove sits in the open space the heat is rising into the roof, where we have comfortable temperatures but it barely spreads into the bedrooms or bathrooms, which on colder days might be not so comfy.
The idea:
Our idea was to move to a pellet stove system, as we could get a pellet mill and next to unlimited amounts of free sawdust, also our neighbor is using a pellet stove and we could bulk buy pellets possibly, or share work for making our own pellets. Our first idea was to place a large pellet stove in the back room of the basement and cut some vent holes in the floor to allow for hot air to rise. this would heat the basement and take care of the humidity/ventilation issue in this room (the floors are 2x6 boards so fairly easy to realize). We would remove the gas stove and use the existing exhaust pipe as the new stove would be more or less below the existing one. if possible I would like a stove/furnace with an external holding tank, as the room offers enough space to put a tank in and we would have the possibility to refill it from the outside of the house and therefore not having to carry pellets inside.
The questions:
1. is an idea like this feasible or will the heat just disappear into the basement and the heat would not get up into the living area?
2. if this works would it overheat the basement?
3. how to get the heat in the upstairs bedrooms? we can cut vent holes in three of the bedrooms upstairs, but not the master bedroom as the kitchen is below and I don't want all the cooking smells coming up as well. I also see issues with the bathrooms.
4. to fix the issue with the bathroom I thought about a furnace to hot water boiler to radiator solution, any ideas here? (forced air is not an option)
5. would we be better of replacing the gas stove where it is with a properly sized pellet stove and add smaller pellet stoves in basement and master bedroom?
6. any other ideas or advice?
My wife and I recently bought a log cabin in the greater Seattle area. We are very happy with the cabin and there are no bad surprises. We knew from the beginning that the heating system is something we want to change.
The cabin:
The cabin sits on a concrete basement and has two stories, so three stories in total and about 3,000 sqf almost evenly spaced over the three floors, so about 1,000 sqf per floor. The basement is divided in three rooms. The ground floor hosts the living room right at the main entrance with a den on the side. The living room is open above with the staircase going up/down. Also kitchen, dining room, a bathroom as well as a pantry is located on the ground floor.
The upstairs has 4 bedrooms, a bathroom as well as the master bathroom/walk in closet. See floor plan below.
The current heating system:
Currently there is a Propane space heater in the basement, next to the basement door. There is a gas fireplace in the living room which acts as the main heat source and a small propane stove in the dining room for additional heating. additional there are baseboard heaters (which most of them don't work).
The problem:
The back room in the basement can get quite humid as there is no ventilation, also the propane space heater produces a lot of humidity. The gas stove in the living room, which acts as primary heat source is undersized for the house I think. currently it doesn't get overly cold at night but it cant keep up with heating and runs all night. It also is quite noisy (I already cleaned the fan from an infestation of dog hair, but there might be more in there). As the stove sits in the open space the heat is rising into the roof, where we have comfortable temperatures but it barely spreads into the bedrooms or bathrooms, which on colder days might be not so comfy.
The idea:
Our idea was to move to a pellet stove system, as we could get a pellet mill and next to unlimited amounts of free sawdust, also our neighbor is using a pellet stove and we could bulk buy pellets possibly, or share work for making our own pellets. Our first idea was to place a large pellet stove in the back room of the basement and cut some vent holes in the floor to allow for hot air to rise. this would heat the basement and take care of the humidity/ventilation issue in this room (the floors are 2x6 boards so fairly easy to realize). We would remove the gas stove and use the existing exhaust pipe as the new stove would be more or less below the existing one. if possible I would like a stove/furnace with an external holding tank, as the room offers enough space to put a tank in and we would have the possibility to refill it from the outside of the house and therefore not having to carry pellets inside.
The questions:
1. is an idea like this feasible or will the heat just disappear into the basement and the heat would not get up into the living area?
2. if this works would it overheat the basement?
3. how to get the heat in the upstairs bedrooms? we can cut vent holes in three of the bedrooms upstairs, but not the master bedroom as the kitchen is below and I don't want all the cooking smells coming up as well. I also see issues with the bathrooms.
4. to fix the issue with the bathroom I thought about a furnace to hot water boiler to radiator solution, any ideas here? (forced air is not an option)
5. would we be better of replacing the gas stove where it is with a properly sized pellet stove and add smaller pellet stoves in basement and master bedroom?
6. any other ideas or advice?
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