Woke up to Frozen Pipes

[PunKid8888]

So last night it was about 10F and windy snowy all night.

I woke up and wanted to make some breakfast in the morning. no water. Check around the house. nothing. Great frozen pipe.

Go check the basement and notice the basement doors (dual swing in) were just a crack open but it was enough to allow some snow drift into the basement. Sure enough the pipe right off the well tank was frozen. So I thawed it and within 15mins had water. Inspected and nothing is leaking. Lessen learned make sure basement doors are closed tight.

So onto my question. How does your wood stove (on ground level) do at heating the basement?

I am currently running a pellet stove in the house (its actually directly above the well tank) and it does an ok job of heating the house but the furnace still comes on anything below 20F out. it seams it does not radiant any heat towards the basement. But I think next year I want a full wood stove in the house for a couple different reasons. I would like to not need any additional heat source for the basement, in other words a stove that can heat the living floor as well as the basement, I am not a big fan of the stove being in the basement.

So some facts about the house, 1100sqft ranch, single floor. House is pretty well insulated, but the basement is a disaster. Dirt floor and half crawl space with rock foundation up front and cement out back no access from inside the house. one duct off of furnace pointed at well tank for heat. Average temp 43F (before heat comes on, on a 20F and under night outside) This is my first winter here so its a learning experience.

I have some more ideas to help with freeze ups for this year but I would like to think that a wood stove on ground level would provide enough heat to keep the basement at a higher temp then currently

 

[savageactor7]

If you lock down any open air spaces that'll help kill the wind chill which usually does the freezing. Also we use bales of straw in certain areas against the foundation...a defense of last resort.

 

[fossil]

If the crawl space has stemwall, or foundation vents, they absolutley need to be sealed during winter and open during summer. If the only real protection you have against frozen pipes beneath the floor is the furnace vent that dumps down there, then you need to run that furnace once in a while during very cold weather. You're lucky that you caught it quickly, as what commonly happens is the water in copper pipe freezes hard, and in doing so expands to the point where it ruptures the wall of the pipe, but you don't know it until it begins to thaw out and the ice plug blows. Been there, done that. A long-term solution might be to replace the most vulnerable runs of pipe with PEX. The copper can simply be cut at appropriate places and replaced with PEX, with will not burst, even if it freezes. In any case, you need to keep that crawl space sealed up and add a bit of heat to it from time to time during real cold periods. Rick

EDIT: It also seems to me that the floor in that house ought to be pretty well insulated, so I wouldn't expect much benefit in the crawl space below from a properly installed woodstove on the floor above.

 

[PunKid8888]

Fossil, no insulation on the floor. I use the term crawl space loosely. I think the house was original a small camp, and when they added to it they created a full height foundations but never dug out the center (original part of the house). The Back door is walk out. back section of the basement is about 5.5 to almost 6ft high. it has all the plumbing, electrical panel and furnace. the center of the house has a 4ft tall path, and on either side its only about 1ft between the dirt and the floor joist, this is where the rock foundation is. Then the front of the house (another addition) is over 6ft high, full concrete walls.

Weird huh, Anyways I am pretty sure I won't have another freeze up with some of things I plan to do. IE, Close off the back section from the front so that all the plumbing and furnace are enclosed in a smaller footprint. and some heat tape for peace of mind, and make sure those doors Stay closed TIGHT

But I still would like some comments on the wood stove heating the basement through the floor. Another thing to consider is that I have a single flue chimeney in the center of the house that the wood stove would be right next to (it will have its own insulated pipe going straight up) so I am thinking all the masonary should provide a good thermal mass to help stabilize the temp inside the house as well as provide some heat below in the basement, and unfortunately some heat in the attic which is kinda unavoidable.

 

[LLigetfa]

I have a 4 foot crawlspace with insulated walls and a concrete floor. For all intents and purposes, it is a basement for midgets. I have a centrifugal 8 inch duct fan down in the crawlspace that pulls air off the concrete floor, across a couple of filters, up through the floor above and into the bottom of my stove. Warm air is drawn back down into the crawlspace at the opposite end of the house. This results in nice warm floors throughout.

 

[PunKid8888]

thats pretty cool, did you have a problem with cold floors before the addition of the fan and ducts?

 

[LLigetfa]

I installed my stove when I built my house so it's always been this way. On my former home, I retrofitted a wood heater but did it differently and had cold floors unless I turned on the electric heaters in the crawlspace.

 

[fossil]

LL's solution is elegant. Absent some sort of purpose-built system like his, though, your crawl space isn't going to see much benefit heat-wise from a woodstove being on the floor above. He's moving air (forced convection) to accomplish his goal. Your stove is going to require a hearth of some appropriate insulative value to protect the combustible materials beneath it. That hearth will need to extend out some minimum distance all around the stove. All that stuff will tend to minimize any sort of heat transfer from the stove to the space below. The woodstove itself is a space heater...radiant and convective. Uninsulated floors exposed to the crawl space below probably aren't going to become warm enough to transfer any appreciable heat downward, they'll just be cold floors. Compartmenting the crawl space as you described might be a good thing, but it depends on the whole system you decide on. If you can isolate the portion where the piping is, and provide some heat to it when needed, that's good. The other portion might simply be insulated well from above and from the side to the other compartment and left at that, so long as there's nothing temperature-sensitive in there. Lots of ways to go, and lots of things to consider. Rick

 

[Girl]

My old house, we added a door after the bulk head & kept a small ceramic heater going when we knew the temp would drop.

Had my first close call this AM myself, feel asleep before I could bank the stove for the night.
(Snowstorm = going to local pub down the road)
The BF the insomniac woke up at 2:30 AM and started a coal bed for me which roused me from my slumber and
asked him to turn on the electric heat to avoid a problem.

 

[woodjack]

I have a centrifugal 8 inch duct fan down in the crawlspace that pulls air off the concrete floor, across a couple of filters, up through the floor above and into the bottom of my stove. Warm air is drawn back down into the crawlspace at the opposite end of the house. This results in nice warm floors throughout.

I guess this is the OAK that you referred to in the other thread. How do you get the cold basement air to directly feed the stove?

 

[PunKid8888]

Yea I think the sectioning off of that area will be the best solution. I do have a plan to pour some concrete in that section to get rid of the dirt floor. It might help a little, more for the moisture in the summer though. But all that costs money, which is not something I have a lot of.

Here is maybe another way of asking my question

If I did not run the furnace. do you think that the basement would be heated better or worse with my current pellet stove (rated for 1200sqft), or a wood stove looking at 1500sqft or larger stove).

My thinking is the pellet stove is straight convection as its only way to heat. Where a wood stove uses both convection and radiat, and yes I will have the floor protection but I would think that brute force of the wood stove would help.

Also New question. I am a big VC fan. and thinking of getting the resolute acclaim, anyone using it with comments? I think the biggest downfall to the stove is the 16inch log length, but I am use to my moms Aspen which took the same and I just adapted.

 

[fossil]

I have a centrifugal 8 inch duct fan down in the crawlspace that pulls air off the concrete floor, across a couple of filters, up through the floor above and into the bottom of my stove. Warm air is drawn back down into the crawlspace at the opposite end of the house. This results in nice warm floors throughout.

I guess this is the OAK that you referred to in the other thread. How do you get the cold basement air to directly feed the stove?

What he's talking about here is not an OAK...it's a way of circulating air from upstairs to downstairs. If this fan he's talking about were connected directly to his woodstove, he wouldn't have a woodstove, he'd have a forge. Rick

 

[LLigetfa]

No, not the OAK. I have separate outside air going directly to the stove's air intake. This 8 inch duct goes into the bottom of the stove blowing air in between the firebox and the outer shell and exits as hot air through the grille at the front. I attached a pic from the manual that shows the optional bottom duct but I run it in reverse blowing cold air in rather than sucking hot air out.

 

[woodjack]

LL, nice set-up, and thanks or the diagram.

 

[chad3]

Yea I think the sectioning off of that area will be the best solution. I do have a plan to pour some concrete in that section to get rid of the dirt floor. It might help a little, more for the moisture in the summer though. But all that costs money, which is not something I have a lot of.

Here is maybe another way of asking my question

If I did not run the furnace. do you think that the basement would be heated better or worse with my current pellet stove (rated for 1200sqft), or a wood stove looking at 1500sqft or larger stove).

My thinking is the pellet stove is straight convection as its only way to heat. Where a wood stove uses both convection and radiat, and yes I will have the floor protection but I would think that brute force of the wood stove would help.

Also New question. I am a big VC fan. and thinking of getting the resolute acclaim, anyone using it with comments? I think the biggest downfall to the stove is the 16inch log length, but I am use to my moms Aspen which took the same and I just adapted.

Since burning with wood, the basement has been significantly colder. The furnace puts out a lot of heat in that area. I'd like to get something to heat it, but: 1. You are trying to heat the earth at that point, and 2. Chimney any way I could would be very hard.

 

[begreen]

We went from a funky crawlspace with varying clearances of 2 to 1 ft. It was mess and a rodent haven. In 2006 the house got a real foundation and raised about 3ft. I insulated all the walls and seal it off in the winter. During this prolonged cold spell so far it hasn't gotten below 60 in spite of temps staying in the 20's. The ductwork for the heat pump is all well insulated and all joint are sealed so basically the crawlspace takes care of itself. Our floors are pretty comfortable too, especially compared to the old crawlspace. We're pretty happy with the change. Insulation rules!

 

[grsimmon]

This might sound stupid but it gives me piece of mind. When it's real cold and windy (-55 with wind) I just let the water drip from the furthest faucet really slow all night. Just barely a drip, but it's enough to keep my trouble spots from freezing and not waste $$ using other heat sources.

 

[bsimon]

How does your wood stove (on ground level) do at heating the basement?

It don't.

 

[LeonMSPT]

Unless you put it in water, and pump it there, you'll beat yourself trying to get heat to go down. It goes in the same direction smoke does, opposite the direction water does. And the colder it is, the more it wants to go up.

 

[sbohlen]

I found I had the same problem on very cold nights. There are some bathroom pipes which run close to the foundation wall. The woodstove keeps the house warm so the furnace never kicks on and the cellar gets cold. We put a section of baseboard in the coldest part and set it up on a zone so it wouldnt get lower than 40 degrees F. That seems to take care of any problems.

 

[FOBOS]

Hello. Is there enough room for a milk house heater? We had to put one down where our pump and pressure tank are located, along with some frost tape. That was not enough and the pipes froze. Now we drip/light stream of water all day and the pipes do not freeze. It's warming up here, only -20 with wind chills as of this writing. Good luck!

 

[snowtime]

I can support the fact that our wood stove does not heat the basement at all. It keeps the floor temp up so there is no downward pressure on temps from the basement ceiling other than that its all up to natural factors. Seeing as our basement is full of preps we like it cool down there. When it gets to -45f the basement will go down to 38f. It should be noted that our basement is 4' of 10" concrete with 4' of logs on top which we then built the house on. So only 4' is underground. This was to raise the house to deal with the big snow loads we get.
I think for now heat tapes [nice to have power] and then redo your basement next summer.

 

[oconnor]

Mine keeps it habitable down there, but I just air sealed it and insulated the walls and header space to R24. I am considering adding a cold air exhaust to blow cold air from the basement to the room the insert is in upstairs as a way of keeping the temps from getting so hot in the living room - as a side effect, the basement shoud warm up if I allow for replacement air to move back down. Similar in idea to LLgetfa, but way less elegant.

If you don't have an insulated basement, then I'd add an electric pipe heater instead of heating the whole space, only to have it leave thru the walls and cracks.