upstairs duct work?

[philupthegastank]

Hi,

im currently ripping apart my house with a limited budget. There is no duct work going up to the second story.
I was planning on putting in a wood stove to heat the whole house. Should I still consider paying to put the ducts to the second story? I cant afford to do a new furnace to heat the extra square footage, plus ducts, plus a new wood stove, not to mention im converting from fuel oil to propane, and the chimney needs a liner cause right now its just brick and mortar. I would have to do the new furnace and the new ducts and then wait another year or two for the wood stove install. but right now my house is gutted so now is the easiest time to do it, or should i just suck it up, take out a little loan for the wood stove install? Kinda stuck about what I should do...

 

[JoeyD]

I was in your situation 30 years ago and should have added the duct work then, or at least I wish I had done it. I did run a couple of half-fast ducts that barely worked and we lived with that for heat upstairs. Fast forward 15 years and I wanted central air so I went with two units, one in the attic with new duct work for the second floor because AC would not work right with what I had and a second unit connected to my existing ductwork. It would have been a lot cheaper if I had done the ducts right in the beginning.

Last year I managed to get the gas company to run a main to my house when my oil burner failed. Again I went with two units, because I'm looking at resale down the road and wanted everything done right. I put one on the AC duct work in the attic and one to replace where my oil burner was. That makes two times I had to shell out more money then I would have if I had just done it right in the beginning.

With that said like you I had limited funds at the time but I was fortunate enough to buy my way into making everything work well later in life. Between both the AC and heat I probably spent $10,000 or more to do it backwards.

 

[HVAC_Marc]

what Joey said. However if you have no need or want to sell or have AC then you may consider gravity vents, These are thru-the-floor/ceiling grates that allow hot air to rise and cold to fall. Add as many as possible. Decorative grates are easy to come by.