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Stove question

Started by Jim_Rogers, April 15, 2012, 01:24:26 PM

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Jim_Rogers

I'm thinking about getting a pellet stove for my mother's house to be installed in the cellar to warm the house from there.

Is this the right section to discuss this idea?

Or should it be in Alternative methods and solutions?

Jim Rogers
Whatever you do, have fun doing it!
Woodmizer 1994 LT30HDG24 with 6' Bed Extension

pinebugsrus

Hi Jim,
your'e on the right topic to ask that question.  I don't have a pellet stove but I'll offer what I can for what it's worth.  Good thing about a pellet stove, they can be vented directly through a wall...no chimney needed so if you had an outside wall on the main floor to put the stove, you would probably heat the house more efficiently.  Heating the basement first, you do get the floors nice and warm but my guess is you would eat a lot more pellets.  Maybe it's the layout of your mother's house that has you thinking basement, for delivery and storage of the pellets.  Are you thinking bulk delivery if it's available in your area?  By the way.....viewed your post from the farm restoration saw job this morning.  Nice looking stuff and very neat job site.  Thanks for sharing.  I'm sure others will join me and offer more first hand input to the stove question so stand by.
Don't know what I wanna be when I grow up.  She says....GROW UP ALREADY!!

Jim_Rogers

I have an older stove in the cellar that my mother used to burn all her paper trash in for many years. It's been there since the 50's.

I was thinking of disconnecting this one from the chimney flue that it has been hooked to for many years.

Then it, the new one, would be centered in the middle of the cellar.
I have a large open cellar and I do want to reduce the amount of oil we burn and I can store several pallets full of pellets in the cellar.
We can carry the bags down the bulkhead stairs and re-stack them in the cellar.

I want to be able to set this up and turn it on and let it go all the time.
I can tend it daily as I'm there everyday taking care of my mother.

I was wondering if there are some that have thermostats such that I can set it for 60 or 65 degrees and keep the cellar warm so that it will rise up and keep the whole house warm. We leave the cellar door open a few inches as she has a cat and the cat uses the litter box at the bottom of the cellar stairs.
So that would allow the heat to raise up and stairway and keep the main living area warmer then just what comes out of her hot water radiators.

I have seen stoves at home shows and such, but I have never inspected them closely.

Any advice on brands are styles would be helpful.
I don't need or want a fancy "front room" stove. Just a basic one that could even be used.

Jim Rogers
Whatever you do, have fun doing it!
Woodmizer 1994 LT30HDG24 with 6' Bed Extension

SwampDonkey

I'll tell you one thing for certain Jim. If the floors are cold, you have a cold house. I know up here that gravity fed heating is cold in these old farm houses, been down that road years ago. This place is well insulated. I would get a pellet if I could get forced air. A 1/4 hp motor only draws $20 of power a month. I don't know how well the heat would radiate in your mom's house. One thing for sure is heat rises, but would enough heat rise? Older folks are always cold you know. ;)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Hilltop366


Is the basement insulated?

I have an idea that the savings would be minimal if any, another option may be a pellet boiler, I don't know anything about them but if you already have the  heat distrubition system for hot water it might make sense to heat the water with pellets. It seems like a bit of a waste to heat a large basement if it is not being used.

This has got me to thinking that if one reason to add the basement heat is to get warm floors perhaps some in-floor heat to a few areas where your mother spends most of her day.

Clam77

You CAN use thermostats on them Jim - makes them extremely efficient.  Lopi is an excellent brand that we've used before for regular wood stoves. Slightly pricey but they're excellent qual

http://www.lopistoves.com/product_guide/

I tend to agree with the others though on this one - unless the basement is finished and your mom is down there alot with a bedroom or tv room or something, you'd be better off having it upstairs in the living space since most pellet stoves have small fans on them to circulate air.  This brand has a burn time anywhere from 9-55 hours on 50 lbs of pellets depending on the model and burn rate according to the site..    :)
Andy

Stihl 009, 028, 038, 041, MS362
Mac 1-40, 3-25

bandmiller2

Jim,a little off subject but if mom has gas down her street it would be cheaper and much easier for boath of you.Right now natural gas is cheaper BTU's than pellets. A nice gas fireplace she could sit near. Frank C.
A man armed with common sense is packing a big piece

Jim_Rogers

Thanks for all your comments and thoughts.

I hadn't considered a pellet boiler but that would make perfect sense to use that instead of a regular pellet stove.

Of course it all depends on the price.

Frank, thanks for that thought but we don't like gas even if it's available, which I'm not sure about at all.

I have a friend who has a couple of pellet stoves in his basement and I'll have to talk it over with him about how he uses it and see. But it could be one pellet stove and one regular stove. I don't remember exactly. I know he runs them on weekends when he's home, but I'm not sure if he runs the pellet stove during the week or not.

The cellar is not insulated or finished off as we have had water problems when it rains a lot, and at 92 she doesn't go down there any more. I do all her laundry.

She had a stair chair to ride up and down the stairs on to get down there but she hasn't used it in years as she spends most of her day in a wheelchair now. She can walk but not far or for long, with a walker.

I'm thinking of trying to sell the stair chair and use the money to offset the costs of a pellet stove/boiler.

Jim Rogers
Whatever you do, have fun doing it!
Woodmizer 1994 LT30HDG24 with 6' Bed Extension

Holmes

  I was looking at stoves a few years ago, Woodstock soapstone  stoves. They told us that putting a stove in an uninsulated basement would not   save any money on heating
Think like a farmer.

red oaks lumber

i just bought a central boiler maxim pellet boiler there 250,000 btu base price not include install aliittle over 9 grand
the experts think i do things wrong
over 18 million b.f. processed and 7341 happy customers i disagree

Clam77

Like Holmes said - an uninsulated basement is gonna waste alot of your BTU's with the concrete absorbing it.  Your best bet would be to install it in the living area.  They're alot safer than they used to be and it'd be a nice social piece for her if she ever has any friends over for coffee or w/e.  Offsetting the price with that wall scooter is a good idea..
Andy

Stihl 009, 028, 038, 041, MS362
Mac 1-40, 3-25

Jim_Rogers

I just had a long conversation with my friend who has been running a pellet stove in his basement for years. In this house and the previous house he lived in for many years.

He says he runs his pellet stove all the time while he and his wife are away from home at work. And he runs another "regular" wood stove while they are home on weekends down at the other end of their cellar under another section of their house under their addition.

I have been in their house and I have seen them both running.

I mentioned to him that there were some comments about the foundation walls not being insulated and that they would suck the heat out.
It is his opinion from his experiences that the concrete foundation walls act like a heat sink and warm up and hold that heat. One because the heat is on inside and two because the ground is not frozen below a few feet below the surface.

And that all heat rises. His previous home was a split level cape and the central stairway was a heat duct and that all the cellar heat would naturally rise up the stairway and warm the upstairs.

In this area there is a "cellar finishing off " company that advertises on the radio saying that 40% of the air on the first floor comes from the cellar and that you need to make the cellar dry to prevent mold and other problems from coming up from down there.

Well if 40% of the first floor air comes from the cellar why don't I heat that air and help warm the upstairs.

She's 92 and she wants it warm all the time. Her thermostat is set at 74 now and in the winter 76.

I have closed off all the upstairs bedrooms that I can. And I will be looking at putting up a thermal blanket for the bottom of the stair going upstairs for next winter.

My friend and his wife are looking to replace their current pellet stove with one that is a bit more prettier, as they do entertain some friends down in his "office" downstairs.

And he has, just today, offered to sell me his old stove, to try out, this coming winter.

It maybe just the thing I'm thinking about doing.

He said he burns a couple or three pallets a year. At least he did this past mild winter. He said in a heavy cold winter he burns four. And his house is a bit more spread out then my mother's house.

He did caution me that the hot water boiler may not come on as much if the pellet stove is warming the house. And that this could be a problem with the heating pipes that run up to the second floor heating system through the outside walls, if they are not insulated enough.

That is a concern I have, as well.

I'll have to check with my boiler man and see if we have antifreeze in our heating system or not. I don't think we do.

We'll have to see how this all plays out.

Jim Rogers
Whatever you do, have fun doing it!
Woodmizer 1994 LT30HDG24 with 6' Bed Extension

Hoss

Jim, We heated out house for about three years with a pellet stove in the basement. The house is over 3000 square feet and the basement is insulated. The stove was a Country brand which is now owned by Lennox. Different brands and models have different burn rates. Country's unit will burn up to five pounds of pellets an hour at 8000 btus per pound or 40,000 btus per hour. The unit heated the house well. However, pellet stoves need a fan to suck the incoming air through the firebox and then push the smoke out the exhaust pipe. When the electricity goes out the smoke stops being pushed out the pipe and fills the room up instead. We had this happen a couple of times before my wife had had enough. We installed a heat pump---not the cheapest thing we have ever done but the most convient. The increase in the electricity bill is less than what we used to pay for pellets each month. We bought a summer place recently and it has a Lopi pellet stove in it. That particular model does not seem to put out much heat---it may just not have a very large burn rate on high.
Just my two cents.
Hoss

SwampDonkey

I'd say that stove must have been poor design or improperly vented if a fan had to be used to force smoke out. I wouldn't want anything to do with it neither.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Hoss

SD
I have looked at a lot of pellet stoves and I've never seen one that didn't have an electric fan to blow the exhaust gases out of the stove pipe. They say that if you have a long verticle run of pipe it may suck some of the smoke out of the stove when the electricity goes off. Kind of like wood stove chimney drafting. But if you vent horizontally or not very high verticlely that smoke has to go somewhere and it usually is into the house. You should have seen us scramble (with the smoke detectors blaring) to open all the outside doors in the middle of winter when the electricity went off.
Hoss

cutterboy

Jim, I don't heat with pellets but I do heat with wood. I have two wood stoves....one in the kitchen and one in the basement. The one in the basement is bigger and does most of the heating. The basement is not insulated and that is not a problem. Once the cement in the floor and walls of the cellar warm up they give off a nice steady heat even when the stove cools off. I think a house is more comfortable when the heat comes from the basement.   Cutter

 
To underestimate old men and old machines is the folly of youth. Frank C.

SwampDonkey

My basement is just cement floor with rock and mortar walls. I use a wood furnace. Nice warm floors and the basement is probably 10 degrees cooler than the first floor. I have a fire on today because it's only in the 40's outside.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Piston

As Holmes mentioned, if the basement isn't insulated, you will be wasting a LOT of heat. 

For anyone using a stove in an un insulated basement, you are wasting an incredible amount of BTU's. 

Concrete is a horrible insulator, however it's excellent at transferring heat through it's walls, and outside where it is wasted. 

Jim,
I highly recommend NOT installing a stove in your mother's basement.  Yes it will help, and it will heat, however, it will cost you 10 times as much to heat her house with a stove in the basement that it would if you could install it upstairs somehow.  Any additional cost of installing the stove upstairs (for whichever vent kit you would need) would be offset in the first winter of burning in the amount you would save in pellets alone. 

Please check out this link to a .pdf on Woodstocks site. 
http://www.woodstove.com/pages/guidepdfs/BasementInstall.pdf
If you insist on putting the stove in the basement, please do some reading over on www.hearth.com before you make your final decision. 

Money is too important these days to be throwing it out the window...especially a basement window. 
-Matt
"What the Lion is to the Cat the Mastiff is to the Dog, the noblest of the family; he stands alone, and all others sink before him. His courage does not exceed his temper and generosity, and in attachment he equals the kindest of his race."

CTYank

Nobody's yet mentioned a possible large problem- storing wood pellets in a humid basement. I don't have a pellet stove, but I've heard many stories about moisture in such situations getting into pellets, through bag walls. They then burn poorly, and tend to disintegrate.
Just so you can avoid that.
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Echo 315, SRM-200DA
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Morso 7110

Al_Smith

 You'd probabley do better with "point of use " type portable heaters than a pellet stove in the basement .

The little electrics such as "Eden pure " types and many others aren't that hard on the electric bill .

Besides dear old mother is not going to be exceptionally fond of trapsing down to the basement to fire a pellet stove every few hours 7 and 24.

It would take a long long time before the electric bill would over shadow the price of a pellet stove plus the nuisance of dealing with it .Not to mention the fact the pellets are not free .

SwampDonkey

A lot of elderly folk have those portable heaters and they are a lot cheaper to run than baseboard they say. My uncle had to remove the kitchen stove because of being held hostage by these insurance outfits. So he got a portable heater for $450 I think. It's suppose to be easy on electric. Just needs it in spring and fall, not during the extreme cold, got furnace for that.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Al_Smith

Another option is a propane infrared heater .They're very stingy on fuel but of course you have to have profane --er propane gas .

Piston

Quote from: Al_Smith on May 01, 2012, 09:58:51 AM

Besides dear old mother is not going to be exceptionally fond of trapsing down to the basement to fire a pellet stove every few hours 7 and 24.

Jim would be doing all the stove loading as he is there everyday, or has someone else to help out. 

My grandfather has one of those eden pure heater things and at first he loved it, then when the electric bill came in he hated it.  I believe he was using it in the dead of winter but he would only heat one room in his house in NH.  I imagine it's much better in the shoulder seasons, and it probably is a whole lot cheaper to run in a very well insulated house, but not my grandfather's 200+ yr old home, which is poorly insulated. 

I don't think those heaters are as good as the advertisements make them out to be.   ;)
-Matt
"What the Lion is to the Cat the Mastiff is to the Dog, the noblest of the family; he stands alone, and all others sink before him. His courage does not exceed his temper and generosity, and in attachment he equals the kindest of his race."

Hilltop366

I was once told by a heating expert that a btu is a btu is a btu no matter how it is made or delivered it takes x number of btu's to heat a particular building.  The only advantage I see with these electric heaters with a fan is going to save you any money is if you don't have zone's and want to reduce the heat in the rest of the house and keep one room warmer, but it still has to over come the off set in energy cost where electricity is still one of the higher cost per btu in most places.

I was also told that any safely built and operated electric heater with a fan will do the same job as the pricey ones they sell. going back to the a btu is a btu.....,

boilerman101


I agree...a btu of heat, is a btu of heat.
These Eden Pure and similar heaters are high priced scams in my opionion. Often $300 or more.
1 kW is 3,413 BTUs. Therefore, since 1500 Watts = 1.5 kW
3,413 x 1.5 = 5,119.5 BTUs per hr for a 1500 Watt heater

Go to you local hardware store. Buy their $29.00 well house heater....1,500 Watts with a  5,119 btu. output.
You just saved yourself $270 on your heating bill.  :D



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