Heating insulated basement from 1st floor stove

We will be building a house east of St.Louis in S. Ill. (3/2 ranch with a walkout) this summer and I have a simple question about heating the basement. The stove, an Ideal Steel, will be on the 1st floor (2000sf, R28 walls, R45 attic). The basement will be fully insulated with 2" XPS under the 4" concrete floor (~R10) and the walls will be R30 insulated (pre-cast Superior Walls). Only about 900sf will be finished living space in the basement (the rest will be storage, HVAC, workshop, etc). Based on your experiences, if the 1st floor is maintained in the low 70 temp range, I'm assuming we'll be able to keep the basement in at least the low 60 temp range using the stove upstairs. I also plan to use at least 2 AirShare powered vents to bring basement air upstairs to help with moving the warm air down the stairwell. As a backup, we will have zoned heating/AC, so the basement can be kept up to temps with the LP furnace or heat pump if needed. Just curious on how successful it is to heat an insulated basement with the upstairs stove.

Thanks,

Dave

 

If it was me, I'd put an extra flue in the chimney and add a stove in the workshop in the basement. If you're running forced hot air, you could disable the burner and run the air through the ductwork to get cool/warm air mixed and moved around the house.. I have no insulation in my basement walls and it's 38-40 degrees down there, so I'm not the right guy to be providing advice.

 

Your thoughts of moving warm air down the stairs might leave you highly frustrated. With Mother Nature and physics involved you might want to take the advice of stuckinthemuck and put a stove in the basement

 

Yes, I understand about pushing warm air, it doesn't work well. But I know some people on here have an insulated basement with the stove upstairs, just trying to find anyone with that experience. Not really a big deal for me, as we can run the furnace or heat pump to keep the basement around 60, but I seem to remember others talking about this situation, can't find it using the search function.

 

I have a cold air return near the bottom of my stove that is plumed into the plenum. When the furnace is not running it is drawing cold air and creates a mini convection loop through the other vents and some winds up in the basement. I find that my basement hovers between 34 degrees when its -20 + below with the wind and on milder days 46 degrees. This is with no insulation and old fashioned stones. I'm not an HVAC guy but it works for us.

 

Will you have radiant in floor heat in your basement that is heated with your heat pump or LP furnace or is it through forced air/heat exchanger?

 

We had considered putting radiant heating in the bedrooms and bath downstairs, but have not followed up with an HVAC contractor yet. That is on my to-do list when we line up a contractor for the build. As it is, we just have forced air heat from the LP furnace and/or heat pump.

 

Just a couple of things to think about.

First. I am no expert. But I don't think your living space in the basement is going to be as warm as you want it to be to go down there and hang out whenever you want in the winter time. Especially for women, kids, anyone who wants it nice and toasty.

Second. I would suggest that you do put in-floor radiant heat in the basement floor. I have it in my attached garage and love it. It is the most efficient heat and with the proper insulation below the concrete and the insulation you will have in the walls, it will take next to nothing to keep the basement where you want it temperature wise when you want it there. And not have to have it there when you don't need it there.

If you did lose power your basement is not going to get too awful cold. And I like the idea of having a small wood burning stove in the basement! If you are going to have one upstairs, put one downstairs as well. That small space will be heated easily, no sense not having it toasty if some day the price of fuel goes through the roof or the power goes out. Let us know what you decide PCRit. Good luck with your house.

 

Thanks for your input, I have been thinking along the same lines. Just need to get a quote for the radiant heat downstairs. But a 2nd small stove, like a WS Fireview may be a cheaper/better solution. Not worried about loosing power, as we'll have a whole house generator as back up.

Another option we've thought about is to put the IS downstairs at the bottom of the stairs. With the small finished space downstairs, the heat from the stove would go right up the stairwell. That would also keep the wood mess from the stove downstairs, which the wifey would like I'm sure! I know lots of people heat from the basement, and if it's well insulated and has a direct heat flow to the upstairs, many have done this successfully.

 

I currently have a stove on the first floor with an insulated basement and have no issues with it staying warm... Ish. It is a newer construction home built in the mid 90's so its insulated fairly well. It stays right around 64F all winter as is with no direct heat source other than radiant heat from above. The furnace tstat is in the stove room so I assure you it never kicks on . The only reason I can figure it stays warm is bc it is completely below grade and surrounded by either the covered porch or the garage around all the outside walls. I'd imagine your weather is similar to mine here in southwest ohio.

 

That is what I suspected, but wanted someone who actually does this to chime in. And yes, our winter weather should be similar to yours. Our basement is going to be very well insulated, and with what little heat flow we get from upstairs, and maybe an occasional boost from the furnace/heat pump, I really don't think we'll have a problem keeping it above 60. If we do, I can always add a small stove downstairs, as has been suggested.

Thanks for the input.

 

Another option we've thought about is to put the IS downstairs at the bottom of the stairs. With the small finished space downstairs, the heat from the stove would go right up the stairwell. That would also keep the wood mess from the stove downstairs, which the wifey would like I'm sure! I know lots of people heat from the basement, and if it's well insulated and has a direct heat flow to the upstairs, many have done this successfully.

Right here I would say "Now your talkin!" That is the right way to heat. I did this for years heating from the basement up with a wood stove. But be prepared, the basement is then kept very, very warm if you want to keep the upstairs heated to say 70º. Many people do it this way and it is convenient for the wood mess to be downstairs. I still have my wood mess down there with my boiler. But I see a couple bedrooms down there in your plan. Do you want it to be 78º in the living space down there? In those bedrooms?

 

Not a problem, I won't be sleeping down there and besides....they'll have ceiling fans

 

LOL. Sorry to go off topic a little. Where is your main entrance to the house, and entrance that you will use all the time. Is there a mudroom?

 

On the pic above, the front door is to the left of center at the bottom (just to the right of the master bedroom). However, very few people use the front door any more. As such, the garage is to the left of the floor plan and garage entrance comes from the left side, in at the top left, through the laundry room, which will serve as a mud room as well.

 

With the stove upstairs and the power vents moving air from the lower to upper level will attempt to defy the laws of physics. The cold air that moves to the upper level will stay near the floor, drift towards the open stairwell, and be the first air to return downstairs.

I have two stoves, one up and the other downstairs. Most of the time I only burn one of them. My downstairs stove is near an open stairway. When it is burning I have a power vent at the far end of the house pushing air down. It pulls the coldest air from near the floor and sends it down to the room with the stove. That cold air sinks to the floor displacing warmer air and helping move it up the open stairway. The power vent augments the natural convection loop and keeps the house fairly evenly heated.

Fighting nature by trying to move heat down is always hard.

KaptJaq

 

After relining my chimney, I wish I still had the option to fire up a stove in the basement, good luck with your building plans and choices, there are many!

 

Very true...

 

My stove is on the 2nd floor of a 2 story "upside down" house. Upside down means the great room (living room, kitchen...) area is upstairs, while the bedrooms are downstairs on the 1st floor. The house is built this way because we have a beautiful view, and the higher the better. What does this mean? It means my stove is on the top floor. The house is approx. 2200 sq. feet, the top floor being about 1200 in one big open room with cathedral ceilings. What I did is install a 4" duct intake up above the stove high (about 10' up the wall) and ran that duct down into the ceiling in our master bedroom just below. I installed a 4" inline duct fan with a "rayostat" control for it (so I could control the speed of the fan) in the bedroom. When the stove is burning, we simply turn the fan on, and out that duct in the ceiling in the bedroom comes 80 to 90 degree air, as if the forced hot air furnace was running. This keeps our bedroom in the mid 60's which is perfect for sleeping, and the rest of the 1st floor in the lower 60's with the oil furnace kicking on a few times a night for 2 minutes or so. We could turn off the oil heat completely and the rest of the first floor temps will drop a bit, but the master bedroom with the 4" vent will stay mid 60's throughout the night.

It actually works pretty darn good. I used only a 4" duct because that is all I could fit in there and get down the wall with to where I wanted to vent it. But if you have space for a 6" or even an 8" duct, you would be able to move a LOT of heated air down to the basement that I bet would easily keep it in the 60's.

I know the story is always blow cold air into the stove room, not the other way around. But in this case, you will want to void that and actually blow the heated air into the basement similar to what I did.

I'll post a pic of the blower installed in the ceiling later.... here is the blower I used, 122cfm, very quiet:
http://www.globalindustrial.com/p/h...mpaignId=T9F&gclid=COKxz-WvxsMCFchr7AodOWoA3A

.

 

Thanks for the feedback. My current plans include a similar setup using "Balance Booster" fans from Tjernlund, which will do the same as what you are doing. This will bring the stove air straight down to the bedrooms directly below the stove room (building codes permitting, but there are few code issues outside the city and out in the country where we'll be). These are 2 spare bedrooms, and will not get used much at all (the Master bedroom is upstairs directly across the room from the stove). In the summer, we'll reverse the Balance Booster fans and bring cooler basement air upstairs.