I have been trying to see if this would work? is its cost effective?
I haev a 1.7 Cape Cod home and we have hardwood floor everwhere and i mean everywhere.
The only place we dont have it is in the kitchen,bathroom and a small 12x6ft attic space on 2nd floor.
The basement is about 900sqft total and is all open.
Walls are Cinderblock
Ceiling is Open no drywall or drop ceiling.
Floor consist of a subfloor then real hardwood on top of that. Thickness of subfloor and hardwood would probably be 1in thick
the theory is if the basement is heated it would act like radiant heating of the subfloor.
I personally think the heat will be absorbed by the cinderblock wall before it heats up the basement or even the floor for that matter.
Does anyone you know do this? to warm the house?
Of they just have it in one room to heat that house/room
Not sure if that would work or not; I would think it may.
When I use my fireplace/insert; I turn the furnace fan on (no heat) to circulate the air; and that works pretty damn well; my downstairs (where the fireplace is) gets about 75-80*, and my upstairs, about 5* cooler. (1700sqft cape)
Actually, this idea does work. My father has a setup like this in his house. (same consturction as yours) he uses a pellet stove. Its NOTHING like radiant floor heat…but it does take the chill off the floor. Keep in mind, it IS more maintenance. filling the hopper, cleaning, lighting etc etc.
Me personally…I insulated my basement, and have a vent right off of the furnace to heat the basement. works well for me and maintenance free.
A little tweaking of your forced air vents would probably make it work doing what 97FormulaWS-6 suggested about turning on just the furnace fan. Close the heat vents downstairs leaving just the return vents open and close the return vents upstairs leaving just the heat vents open. Then you’ll draw in the heat downstairs and move it upstairs. You might need to add an extra return in the room downstairs with the pellet stove though to get enough airflow depending on how many returns you block upstairs vs how many you have downstairs.
there are pellet stoves out there that have blowers that you can hook right into a forced air furnace, which will take it through the ducting in the house.
the next question is would it be more cost efficent for me to use a pellet stove the the natural gas? furnance?
or
use the pellet stove as through the furance ducts or just turn on the fan?
so many dam decision.
The hardwood floors are beautiful but dam does the floor feel like ice some nights lol.
we are frugal and my wife likes it chilly its always at a cool 60 degree in our house lol…so if you ever come over bring hot chocolate.
My Dad actually owns a stove shop and sells numerous brands of pellet stoves. Nearly all of the newer ones or decent name stoves are now automatic lighting and have fairly large hoppers. Cleaning is very minimal… nothing more than emptying the ash pan maybe once a week…
To answer your question though pellet stoves will impress you but you need to make sure you choose one with the correct BTU rating in order to adequately heat a home. All of my dad’s stoves have built in blower systems and the ability to run built in thermostats. I would personally recommend looking into a Pellet Furnace… they are fairly new out there but heat very well and you would be able to run them through ducting which you could not do with a normal pellet stove efficiently.
Pellets right now around this area are running about $225 a ton, if you plan to solely heat a home of your size on pellets I would recommend probably approx. 5 tons for a winter. Pellets are cheaper that natural gas but not as cheap as they used to be and natural gas is said to be “cheaper” this winter…
Burn corn. A friend of mine has a wagon parked next to his house with a 4" PVC pipe running from the bottom of the wagon, though the window and into the stove. He has a drill with an uager bit on it to feed the stove.
Yup it’s true… up to $1500 in tax credit Good luck if you decide to get one man, my parents have a pretty large one in their home and it heats like a mother and is virtually zero maintenance. They clean the pipes out about once a season and have their’s on a thermostat which regulates the house very well. I was impressed and have considered a Pellet Insert for our fireplace at out house.
Good luck if you decide to get one man, my parents have a pretty large one in their home and it heats like a mother and is virtually zero maintenance. They clean the pipes out about once a season and have their’s on a thermostat which regulates the house very well. I was impressed and have considered a Pellet Insert for our fireplace at out house.