Wanting to change to indoor wood furnace but ???help

[treedog]

Ok log home wood stove in unfinished basement not heating up stairs good enough and basement is 90 degrees with fans blowing up stair..just not working ...1100 sqaure foot main floor 680 square foot loft then basement...problem is chimney is on one side of the house electric heat plentem on other ..

 

[velvetfoot]

Do you have a furnace now?
-sorry, didn't see the electric furnace plenum words

 

[treedog]

Fisher papa bear right now

Do you have a furnace now?

 

[velvetfoot]

No ductwork?

 

[treedog]

No ductwork?

Yeah ...unfinished basement ...units will be on opposite side of house of each other can I make this work?

 

[maple1]

Most anything can be made to work, sure. Chimney & some ductwork & you should be off.

Have you tried blowing the air the other way? Blow the cold upstairs air towards the stove? All else being equal, a fan will blow more cold air than warm because colder air is denser.

Is your basement insulated?

 

[treedog]

Yes sir it is insulated...

 

[Bad LP]

Yes sir it is insulated...

With what?

I had a Dover (Maine) wood furnace that is no longer made in my old house that was designed and tied into the plenums and it would easily raise the house into the 80's on any of the coldest nights.

 

[treedog]

Three side mostly under ground front side is 2x6 framed with r19

 

[Fred61]

Log home, how old? Has there been any chinking or patching done since it was erected? Was it properly erected? Meaning, did the craftsman allow for shrinkage? Example, when erecting interior walls that butt to exterior walls, were there slip joints. When someone mentions log construction, I immediately think of extreme heat loss due to air infiltration which is the worst type of loss. I know you said the basement was 90 degrees but if the heat load is higher than the amount of hot air fans are able to provide you will have this result.

 

[Highbeam]

You can add separate ducting for the wood furnace instead of trying to utilize the existing electric furnace ducts. There are some funny rules with the ducts coming from a wood furnace that likely weren't followed with the electric furnace ducting. Besides, this way you can keep independent systems.

Think simple. A single floor register above the furnace that dumps furnace heat into the main floor which will heat the loft naturally. The "return" will be the open doorway leading down to the basement.

 

[laynes69]

Like Highbeam suggested, a stand alone system would work well. Especially if setup for gravity. When the blower would shut off, heat would still rise.

 

[velvetfoot]

Do they make those nice old time cast floor registers?

 

[Highbeam]

Do they make those nice old time cast floor registers?

That's what I'm imagining. A fairly big, grate in the floor but the supply duct could also be run up into a closet and dump out of a sidewall through a grate about the size of a regular cold air return.

 

[velvetfoot]

But you could stand on the grate and get warm.

 

[DoubleB]

Think simple. A single floor register above the furnace that dumps furnace heat into the main floor which will heat the loft naturally.

That's what I did, works well (actually I used a few floor register supplies and a return).

Just a couple weekends ago I did a project that needed a big floor grate. The best I could find was an 8x12 floor register from Home Depot. Turned out it's fairly sturdy compared to what I was expecting. I'd think it would work well for @treedog .

 

[velvetfoot]

How about this?
(broken link removed to http://hudsonvalley.craigslist.org/for/5433242077.html)

 

[DoubleB]

How about this?

Now that's a large grate. Might as well just put a cast iron storm drain in the floor!

 

[velvetfoot]

Plus, it would have thermal mass!