# Wood Stove Questions



## jenangelcat (Apr 17, 2004)

I posted this on another web site forum but would also like your opinions.

We live in a 50+, one story + walk out basement house with 1000sq ft on each floor. It currently has a very inefficient gas furnace in the basement.

I would really like to get off the grid with this and install a wood stove. Especially with gas prices rising 100% in my area. Winters here are usually
-30.

It was suggested that I get a wood furnace instead as the wood stove would not circulate the heat well up to the main floor, leaving the basement sweltering hot. Unfortunately it looks like a wood furnace would be a lot more expensive then the stove and would require electricity to run.

Does anyone have experience with a wood stove as primary heat to heat two floors?

Thanks in advance.

Jen


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## velochic (May 13, 2002)

We have a wood-burning stove. It is in our living room on the ground level floor. Our family room is in the finished basement and we have a floor above the ground floor. Obviously, the stove doesn't do anything for the basement. But it also doesn't do much for upstairs, either. Two winters ago, we had our electricity go out and we had to rely on the stove alone to heat the house. Basically, we had to stay on the first floor to keep warm... and this was running the stove very hot (500 degrees F) and using a very low-speed fan to circulate the heat. The upstairs was freezing - the temp hovered around 55 degrees! We basically went up there only to undress as fast as possible and get under the covers for bedtime. For what it's worth, we have about 2000 total square feet above grade and another 300 finished in the basement.


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## ustasmom (Jan 12, 2004)

We love our wood furnace. We lived with a wood stove for years and the wood furnace is so much better.


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## Rhiannon Feimorgan (Aug 26, 2005)

I grew up in a house with a wood stove in the bacement. It does get warm down there but it's not so bad if you have good air circulation. There are fans you can get at many wood stove stores that use the heat of the stove to turn them. They can realy help get the air moving and are not that expencive. Also putting vents into the floor in each room will help the hot air reach the upstairs faster. If you are taking out an old furnus, there will be vents left behind by the old duct work. Those kinds of vents are usually kind of small though. I like the larger grill work vents you see in old victorian houses. You can find reproductions.


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## becca011906 (Mar 29, 2004)

need to watch this thread... dh is thinking of getting a small shed, a wood burner and a way to blow the heat into our home as our heating sourse for this winter, since our prices should be rising 100-75% we just can't make ends meat that way... but i'm not sure how safe a wood burner will be since we live in a trailer... we'll be looking around and differant stuff this weekend.


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## JenniferH (Feb 24, 2005)

We're looking for a wood stove too, but we have to go kinda cheap because our landlord is splitting the cost with us.

Right now we're going to do electric heaters. We just can't afford natural gas this winter.


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## bird_verde (May 31, 2005)

We are in the process of converting our house to heating with a woodstove and using a cookstove for some heat and some cooking. My in-laws have heated their two-story house (plus a walk-out finished basement = 3 stories) with a wood stove for over twenty years. From my FIL's years of experience, I have come to understand that it is important to have an efficient woodstove and well placed registers. The registers need to be placed in the general area above the woodstove as well as on the opposite ends of the house. (simple example: if woodstove is at the north end, put registers on the north end on the first and second floors and then put registers at the south end of the first and second floors.) You need to create a circular airflow of heat rising above the woodstove and cool air sinking to the basement. It also helps to have a louvered (sp?) basement door for more heat to go up.

Here is a picture of the type of registers that we use:
http://tinypic.com/e8r338.jpg

We also have an old copy of a pamphlet "Wood Burning" that was published by the Northeast Regional Agricultural Engineering Service. It has been incredible useful and I recommend it to anyone who is a novice like me. (great diagrams and charts - everythign from wood stacking to installation) If it wasn't 28-pages, I would scan it and email it to you. The current version is a large book (now called "Heating with Wood and Coal") and is available through most New England Cooperative Entensions. The Maine Cooperative Extension is selling it for $12.00

I hope this helps!


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## velochic (May 13, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *bird_verde*
We are in the process of converting our house to heating with a woodstove and using a cookstove for some heat and some cooking. My in-laws have heated their two-story house (plus a walk-out finished basement = 3 stories) with a wood stove for over twenty years.

A wood-burning furnace, then, not a wood-burning stove (which does not circulate the air). I think that was the OP's original question... whether you need a FURNACE or if a STOVE is enough. A stove is not enough. You have to have an efficient way of circulating the heat. We've never been able to heat more than one floor with a stove.


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## jenangelcat (Apr 17, 2004)

Still thinking about it. The gas prices are going up and the temperatures are dropping. Dh's bro in law is convinced that he can rig something up to suck the heat up to the main floor.

Something needs to be done soon. The temps are usually -2 during the night and dh keeps complaining that he's freezing. Bills are tight right now and I'm scared to turn on the heat. It will be the first year that we've ever paid for heating and after hearing some gas quotes (300-1000/month) I think a loan will be needed if we turn the stupid furnace on.

At this rate I'm tempted to sell the house and buy a one room cabin!

Jen


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## bird_verde (May 31, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *velochic*
A wood-burning furnace, then, not a wood-burning stove (which does not circulate the air). I think that was the OP's original question... whether you need a FURNACE or if a STOVE is enough. A stove is not enough. You have to have an efficient way of circulating the heat. We've never been able to heat more than one floor with a stove.

In my original post, I was referring to my inlaws (as well as ourselves) using only a woodstove (not a furnace) to heat - albeit, they are efficient stoves. The way that we get the heat to circulate, is by creating air flow with properly placed registers throughout the house. The registers are basically 18"x18" holes in the floor that are covered nicely by the metal work (there are no ducts, no piping). The key to the airflow is having registers (or holes) above the stove for warm air to rise directly and then having other cold-air registers at the opposite ends of the house/room. This creates a circular path of warm air rising and cool air falling. A fan or two in the right place also helps were needed.









The layout of the house would play a big part - say if you lived in an old huge farm house, with several small rooms w/ doors, it would be difficult to create a good air flow for any type of heating. However, if you lived in a more modern, open-style house (like mine), it lends itself to efficient heating and air flow, regardless of the type of heat that we use.


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## rgarlough (Jul 18, 2002)

This is our first winter heating our house with our 'new' used wood burning insert (similar to a wood stove but its in the fireplace) I was instructed by the duct cleaning company, to keep our furnace fan 'on' 24/7 to help circulate and filter the air in our old (and not very efficient) 1940s house.

We've had 2 fires so far and with the furnace circulating the air, the house is fairly consistant temp wise, throughout. Granted, the main floor living room where the insert is, IS the warmest but there is a cold air return right next to the insert which sucks all the hottest air down and around the whole house.

Not including the kindling to start the fire, 5 logs raised the temp in our house from 66 to 71 and burned for over 7 hours! Even the basement went up 3-4 degrees which I didn't expect. I lit the fire at 430 am and I let it burn itself out by 2 pm since the sun was nice and warm. I opened all the curtains and the house stayed at 72 thanks to Mother Nature's solar energy







I actually had to open a few windows by late afternoon cuz it was getting sort of warm inside. Course its only been in the 30s and 40s overnight and warms nicely to the 50s and 60s during the day. But I have high hopes for this insert helping this year considering how wonderfully its performed so far!


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