The stove I use is a 1980's Thermo control water stove. Meaning it has the ability to heat your water with a SS coil loop inside the stove. I had it hooked up to heat my baseboard water, but it was a real pain to control. I have no garage or other good place to run a "dump zone". Therefore, once the 80 gallon water tank was up to temp, the excess heat had nowhere to go and the tank would boil over setting off the pressure relief valve, which meant water all over the basement floor. Again, being home only for a few awake hours each day meant full stove loads and not a lot of need for hot water. After giving it a real effort over the course of about a month, I decided it wasn't worth the hassle, and disconnected the water from the stove. Ideally, Id love to have a newer efficient stove on the main floor. Problem is I don't have anywhere that I can put it, and I really don't want the wood mess on the main living floor. An outdoor wood boiler would be nice, but they are pricey and use a lot of wood as well. I don't think a newer stove in the basement would throw the same heat as the big Thermo Control, and therefore wouldn't heat the 2nd floor that well. Maybe that's not true, I don't know. I just know I've never visited someone with a newer stove and thought, "Boy, that really throws the heat". More like can barely feel the heat. Every newer stove I've seen was on the living level. It takes a big stove to heat from the basement. I also have limited places to add ducts to the upper levels.
Come up for a visit my stove can really throw some heat!! I mean wife opens bedroom windows 2 stories above.. heat.. There somewhere is a pamphlet on how much heat under-insulated basements loose in BTUs it’s
Not sure where you are, but, I'm in Mendon. If you wanted to stop by and check out my stove, drop me a pm.
excellent idea if Basement is not insulated. There is no stove I know of to compensate for no insulation
I’m in the same boat. Stove in the basement of a two story cape. No insulation in basement and poor attic insulation both I plan to fix this spring/summer. Have you put any thought into an indoor gasifier? Something I’m looking into. I haven’t gathered much info yet but might be good where already have the baseboard set up?
There are two comments above that really stand out. Lyle and Dennis are correct, a better stove will change your life. When i switched from the Fireview to the Ideal Steel, i went from firing the stove 3 times a day and still being a bit cool at times, to being warmer, having enough coals left after 12 hours for an easy relight, and using less wood. Win, win ,and win! Edit. My house is a poorly insulated cape. I sectioned off and insulated the stove room in the basement because the heat was being all lost in the basement.
sirbuildalot , while my house is a different set up than yours, I honestly think that our setup is less efficient than yours, based solely on the fact that heat rises and the insert we have is on the far end of the house. Inserts are less efficient than freestanding stoves as well. My wife will feed the stove when necessary, but I know if I load it up in the am, that it will have a nice pile of coals to restart in the evening when I get home. I'll do that a lot, especially in shoulder season as the insert will cook my wife out of the house during the day when it's not really cold at those times of the year. A really efficient stove like a Woodstock will definitely heat for 12 hours no problem. I've seen Canadian border VT 's home this early Fall. If his Woodstock can heat his home( and it definitely can) it can heat yours easily from the sounds of it. CBVT's home is definitely non typical and presents some interesting and difficult situations to heat with wood. It does it.
I have an erratic schedule as well (drive truck). Some days I'm home after 8 hours, some days it's more like 14-15 hours between when I leave in the morning and when I get home at night. Without fail, the 30nc has coals left for me to use for an easy relight. I heat a double wide with crap windows from an insulated poured basement with an HHO furnace as backup, so not exactly an apples to apples comparison. For the most part the furnace rarely runs. Lately it has run more because I'm into a part of my stack that isnt as dry as it should be. When I was burning dry wood earlier this season I had no problem keeping the house temp between 72-78*. I guess this is another plug about the importance of dry wood I burn 24/7 despite my schedule. Mainly just because I'm cheap about heating and enjoy everything about farwood gatherin' Plus I've got other hobbies that always seem to drain excess cash Edit: my wife works 8 hr days but rarely does anything with the stove
https://www.woodstove.com/images/pdffiles/PDF Article Downloads/BasementInstall.pdf info on heating from basement
I have a Home heater made in bennington VT it is a wood eliminator but it does throw off the heat it is in my basement the 6inch liner goes ip through the ash cleanout hole in the fireplace and all the way to top of the chimney the old stone fireplace damper is long gone i have glass doors on the fireplace the stove sits right under the fireplace in a 3 sided concrete closet that supports the fireplace my house is a small bungalow 750sq ft and if i try to use the stove in weather above 30 degrees it will drive us out of the house a couple of winters ago it was 0 degrees and we were burning locust it was 87 degrees in the living room
Interesting article. Some of it sounds like BS though. No way putting insulation on your walls of a below grade basement on all 4 sides will reduce wood use by 16 times. From 4 cords for 3 months to a quarter cord. I just don't buy it. I'm sure it does help, but not that much. I still may do the insulation though. The 2" sheets are R-13, and are about $40 each. I'd need 30 of them, so it'd cost me about $1,200.
Burn here 24/7. Load in the morning get a good fire going then shut it down, around 6.30am. Return from work at 4.00 house around 60-65 degrees. Rake up coals and burn down, refill and get temp around 75 and shut in down. Wakey wakey around 5.45 and off I go again. That's the normal routine. In cold cpld weather there may be a bedtime top up or a 3.00 pee break top up and the stove will be loaded full as possible.
Could you add an insulated storage tank to your current set up to distribute heat while you are gone?
Well, from having a stove in the basement w/o insulation I call BS as well. But it depends on the basement. If you have 8 foot tall 8 inch thick concrete walls that are exposed to the outside air temp those walls are going to suck some heat proportional to the temp outside. Concrete block might be worse. Some basement walls are 12 to 18" stone walls. Our house is 12" thick walls full of 10 and 11 inch stones. Not quite the same as 8" concrete. If you have 7 feet of soil covering up that 8 feet then a major portion is insulated with soil. The drier the soil the better the insulation capability of the soil. How far does the frost penetrate your soil and for how long ? Soil insulates itself from the harshness of Winter all Winter long. I've had two houses with basements now that I went to the expense of moving the roof water far away from the perimeter of the basement wall and the removal of that moisture increased basement temps and kept both of them much drier. Like don't need a dehumidifier any more drier. If you take worst case scenario data to support a generalized premise you have fake news. If you also have an ignorant audience willing to believe anything they are told you can make a lot of money off of that ignorance.
