Heating a house with wood

[VW Splitter]

My house is around 1900 sq ft. We heat entirely with a free standing wood stove. Stove is in the den. The den, kitchen, and dinning room is an open floor plan. Have a sun room off of that and a hall way to the bed rooms. The den stays between 72 to 82 degrees. We like it hot. The sun room stays around 7 or 8 degrees cooler than the den. That gives you options, warm room or cooler room. The master bed room is the first one down the hall. We regulate the heat in there by how wide the bed room door is opened. We keep it almost closed most of the time to keep it cooler in there. 67 is the perfect sleeping temp. To heat the two bed rooms down the hall I installed some duct work in the attic with a in line fan. There is a grill in the ceiling right over the wood stove (the hottest place in the house) with duct going back to the 2 rear bed rooms. Works great. The den backs up to the garage. Built a small pass thru door between the two. The wood goes in a wood box in the garage and comes out on the rock harth by the stove. That does wonders to keep the mess down. Also hooked up the water to the wood stove to make hot water. That's a whole nother story. It works great to. Love the wood heat and beating the power Co. out of the $$$$$$$.

 

[woodchuck357]

We keep a box fan blowing the air around the stove

but we like the bedrooms cold, so the vents and doors to those stay closed. The living room and dining room are connected by a wide arch opening, the stove is in the living room where we spend much of the time sitting, reading and computing. The rest of the house is cooler because we are moving around and are active in those areas. If the stove area gets to warm we turn on the central HVAC fan on to cool those rooms down. Does not happen often.

Average temp in the active rooms is usually around 65 F, sitting rooms 72 F, on a cold windy night bedroom temp might get down to upper 40s but that's the way we like it, uh-huh.

 

[brenndatomu]

Couple things here...

1. Spend extra to insulate, it will pay you back forevermore! Go with super-insulating, you will be able to heat yourself right outta the house with any old stove or insert, no matter where you place it. My neighbor built a super-insulated house, he claims he can heat it with a candle! :msp_biggrin:

2. If you are planning a stove on the lowest level, insulate the basement block very well, otherwise it will act like a huge heat sink. Poured foundation walls using Styrofoam forms works well.

3. It's likely your insurance co. will require you to have some sort of gas/oil/electric heat system in place as your "primary" heat but fortunately they cant control where you set the thermostat! :msp_wink:

4. There was someone on here a while back that had a home with a front and back stairwell, they claimed the one nearest the stove acted as heat distribution and the other the cold air return and it was very effective in heating the whole house.

 

[Streblerm]

I have an old farm house built in the 1830's. it is about 2400sf and marginally insulated. The stove is located in the center of a fairly open (large doorways) floor plan. The first floor is about 1600 sf. If I keep the room with the stove at around 75 degrees then I can keep the far ends of the first floor about 68. The upstairs stays about 64. This is with no fans. When it gets into the single digits the edges of the downstairs drop to about 64 and it is 62 upstairs. I have a heat pump with two zones. One zone is a little less than half the downstairs and upstairs and the other zone is the stove room. I keep them set at 68 degrees during the day and 65 at night. The zone with the stove never comes on and the other one rarely comes on unless it is really cold.

I like it cool in the bedrooms for sleeping and I figure you can go into the cooler side of the house if you get too hot. In practice everyone, even visitors, congregate around the stove. A warm room with a stove is different from a warm room with central heat. I compare it to being outside on a sunny day with low humidity. It feels good.

I don't mind the 10 degree temperature swing in the house and basically I use the heat pump as backup heat with the stove for the main heat rather than heat pump for main and resistance for backup. My basement and ductwork are leaky so using the furnace fan to distribute heat doesn't work in my house. I know this is a fundamental problem that should be fixed but it is easier to chuck another log in the stove.

I agree if you want truly even heat then a forced air wood furnace would be the way to go. If I were to design a house for a woodstove it would be a two story with an open floor plan on the first floor. It would have cathedral ceilings in the center of the house and bedrooms around the outside walls of the second floor with large grates to allow the cool air to settle. I would put the stove in the center of the first floor and I imagine the heat would circulate fairly well. Of course this is the opposite of how you would design a conventional forced air system.

 

[reaperman]

P.S. My question is prompted by the fact that I am planning to build a house this spring and intend to install a free-standing stove (no outdoor boiler, no wood-fired furnace - I like the ambiance of a flame in my main living area). I'd like to use this heater as much as possible rather than rely on electricity or gas.

Welcome to the site, its good to see a fellow Minn boy in the group. If I were in you shoes and about ready to build a new home. I would be looking for a open concept home so the heat would reach most of the main living area. Yes, wood stoves are space heaters, but they do heat large open spaces very well. Open kitchen to living room areas will both benefit from not only the wood stove, but from the kitchen stove as well. Yes kitchen stoves give off a lot of heat, especially when using the oven to cook larger meals. That heat is also transfered into nearby adjoining rooms. Another aspect to look at is window placement. I found this out when I built my home by accident. The builder recommended I put a 9 foot wide, sliding glass door, in place of a standard 6' wide sliding glass door. His thinking was I had a much nicer view of my property with a larger window/door. And he was correct. But what I found out in the first winter in living in my new home ( now 7 years). Was this west facing 9 foot window, just happens to catch a lot of the afternoon sun during the winter months. The sunshine coming in this window and hitting my wood floors, not only keeps my home warmer, but actually increases the heat by 3 or 4 degrees when shining. I also have a standard 6 foot sliding glass door in my bedroom that gives the same effect as it hits the floor in my bedroom. So if you can position your new home to catch the western winter sun, you will benefit from putting larger windows. Trust me, windows are expensive, but the larger window will pay for itself in added heat. And insulate the interior walls of your home. It sounds silly, but it does have benefits. Obviously, heat will stay within a confined area, and secondly, noise has a harder time penetrating.

I live in the same climate at you do, were only 60 miles apart from west to east. I heat with a wood furnace. I dont start my wood furnace until around 7-8pm nightly. I keep it going and stuff it full before bed. It goes out sometime during the night. I wake up to 75-78 degrees each morning. I will not have to light another fire until 7-8pm. By that time the house will only be down to no lower than 68, mostly 69 or 70. It doesnt matter if the high for the day is -5F. If the sun is shining the house will stay warm. As the sun sets, thats when the temps start to fall. I have a open home without a lot of walls, except where absolutely needed. My basement is another story, its colder down there. Mainly because I havent put carpet down yet and have a bare cement floor. I havent quite finished the basement yet but I'm 90% done. Good luck.

 

[dingeryote]

Remotes right off the stove/fireplace run to the HVAC fan, or having the exchange air drawn from the room with the stove will do it.



This thing. Quad 7100, has four remotes. Two that run off of low speed register fan in other rooms, and two gravity runs that we blocked off as they weren't needed.
In essence, it is a furnace disguised as a fireplace, heating 2,580sq ft. plus basement.

The fan remotes havn't been needed, even during the bad cold snaps, because of the layout of the house bieng designed for airflow, and insulating the living #### out of the place.
The two rooms that have the remotes, are used infrequently, but only take 10min of running the register fan to equalize.

Best investment has been the ceiling fan in the same room as the fireplace/stove and cold air intake.
Just turn the HVAC fan on, and the wole house gets the warmed air, and gets the thermal mass temp. of the whole home up when needed.

Goofy looking, but moves a crapload of warm air in all directions quietly, and makes the 18' ceiling an asset rather than a waste.

If you're building the house and starting from scratch, plan for insulating to start with, and look hard at airflow and passive heating from windows, as well as laying out the house to take advantage of sunlight and thermal mass like stone floors. The passive effect of sunlight adds up quick, and the thermal mass moderates the temp swings quite a bit when the stove burns low.
Even if heating off a dadgum furnace, the insulation, taking advantage of passive heating, and thermal mass pays off big time.

Make sure to post pics and keep us updated during the build.
It's always fun to see the direction other folks go and thier results.

Stay safe!
Dingeryote

 

[shelbythedog]

Freestanding stove located in my back room can keep this 1200 sq ft ranch above 70 without the use of any propane, as read on my forced air thermostat, when the outdoor temp is down to -5 overnight and +5 during the day. I use those outdoor temps as reference because that's as cold as its been here since the stove was installed.

We run the ceiling fan in the living room (front room) on low, in reverse, 24/7 during the heating season.

Bedrooms are at the far end of the house and definitely stay cooler than the living room/kitchen/back room which are all pretty open to where the stove is. As others have mentioned, a cooler bedroom is not a problem for me one bit. But, I will mention that the bedroom doors must be open to keep the rooms warm. Certainly this could be an issue if kids/spouse/guests want privacy in the bedroom. In our current situation, keeping the doors open 24/7 works for my girlfriend and I, but for a family I would say with 100% certainty that dedicated duct work and/or supplemental (read: electric baseboard) heat in the bedrooms would be mandatory.

I grew up in a house with a wood fired furnace in the basement that tied into the natural gas furnace's duct work (heat & return). This setup is the way to go for an indoor burner IMHO. Solves the privacy issues, as well as allowing even heating. Only major downside to mention is that it requires electricity to function where my stove requires no electricity to operate.

Also worth mentioning is that both indoor and outdoor furnaces often can be plumbed to heat your domestic hot water, generally a stove cannot. This would be a great consideration of mine if I had the ability to design my home around a given system. The savings on heating hot water for a family with a few kids has to me noticeable come the end of the month.

IMHO, its impossible to decide if a stove will meet your needs without first answering the following question: Do you expect the stove to offer 100% of your heat, or is a moderate use of gas heat acceptable? If 100% is the answer, a stove should not be your first choice.

 

[tld400]

I have a 2000 sq. ft. ranch that is well insulated. Put a cast iron woodstove in the house last year and havent used any other source of heat other than woodstove. The stove is in a 14x 20 room next to the open living room / kitchen. Bedrooms are all in the back of the house with a hallway that goes around like a circle back to front of house and I keep house anywhere from 72 to 80 and the bedrooms stay the same with the use of a box fan in the doorway of the room the stove is in. Electric bills went from 450 plus to about 100 to 120 a month and thats because everything else is electric in house. So I believe with the right set up and good ins. and windows you can heat a decent size house with a woodstove. My only mystake is I should of put stove in 10 years ago. Goodluck with your new house.:msp_smile:

 

[zogger]

Oh, and before you build..do it right the first time, it will make your heating and cooling needs very modest..check this out..

Superinsulation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have worked on some..it is UNREAL....you can get by all but the coldest days with just ambiet normal household other stuff working. Just the lights, cooking, hoomanz in the house, solar gain, etc. Holds the heat well, or conversely, keeps any cool air from AC units in.. Talking down to perhaps 1/5th or even less the heating and cooling needs of most other modern homes.

I love this story..one house we didnt even do a full retrofit, just a mild cheap job, lady calls up says we broke her air conditioner. Well, we didnt touch her hvac stuff. She goes, it hasnt come on since yesterday!!! All mad. I go, Lady, is your house still cool? Well..yes.. You got what you paid for ma am!! She was used to hearing the AC kick on every 15 or 20 minutes, it had gone a whole day after it reached thermostat temp and not come back on!

 

[rmount]

P.S. My question is prompted by the fact that I am planning to build a house this spring and intend to install a free-standing stove (no outdoor boiler, no wood-fired furnace - I like the ambiance of a flame in my main living area). I'd like to use this heater as much as possible rather than rely on electricity or gas.

Since you are building new I would make sure that insulation is very high and air leakage very low. This not only reduces the amount of heat you need to put in but greatly stabilizes the temp through out the house. We renovated a 1900s farmhouse, original was 450 sq ft ground floor, 450 sq ft 2nd floor with a 300 sq ft one story addition on the back. Spray foam (4+") everywhere except in the ceiling of the addition which got 12" blown cellulose. We heat with a woodstove in the living room (ground floor of the original house). Livingroom is usually high 70s, kitchen/diningroom (the one story addition) is low to mid 70s, the ground floor bedroom would be low to mid 70s except we keep the door shut so that it stays cooler to make sleeping more comfortable, second floor loft and bedroom are mid to high 70s (all guest space, most open a window if they are sleeping up there). I fill the stove in the evening and then when i get up in the morning. On cold mornings (below 10F), I sometimes run the propane furnace for 10 minutes or so to take the chill off the back corner of the kitchen while the fire gets going. We burn between 2 and 3 cord a year.

 

[KaptJaq]

Another option...

I start my oil fired furnace once a month just to make sure it works. I have not used it for heat (unless I am away for several days) in three years. My house is 50 year old 2400 sf ranch.

I have a wood burning insert in the main living area of my home (open floor plan LR DR & Kitchen). When it is not too cold outside it keeps this area in the low 70s and the bedroom end of the house in the mid to upper 60s. I use a small table fan to move the air around to balance the heating.

I have a second stove in the downstairs family room. When it is very cold outside I fire up the second stove. Since it is under the bedroom end of the house it helps, with the use of a couple of floor registers, even out the heat upstairs.

With both stoves going I do not have to push either very hard so no single room gets too hot and the house is comfortable throughout.

Multiple stoves might be the answer for a larger home.

KaptJaq

 

[blades]

+1 on multiple stoves, rather than trying to push one. Course not all of us are that flush or have enough room or the other 1/2 has an opinion ( most likely not to be ignored).

 

[agstr]

Masonry heater - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We have a masonry heater in our home with an open floor plan with bedrooms upstairs; the house is warm with one or two fires a day, as advertised--the certified mason knew his businesss. My general contractor was very skeptical of the concept (he naturally wanted his HVAC guy to sell me a junk system that would be expensive to run) and despite objections from even my wife, I made the plunge and contracted one to be built. The family is very happy with it, is a natural congregation point and really doesn't generate much smoke at all -- if also allows us to burn low btu wood more efficiently. Yup it was expensive but that is what hard work and saving (if possible) for a goal gets. Does my heart good to wean ourselves off energy monopolies and keeps the money circulating locally.

 

[Snojetter]

Wow! So many responses and so many things to consider. To clarify, when I say I want to heat the entire house, what I really want to accomplish is keeping the house livable in all areas - the bedrooms being cooler is a given. I'm not expecting that each room will be regulated to within a degree of each other.

This stove will be located in the basement in the near exact center of the building. The basement family room will be the main gathering place for the house so we want the stove in that room. It will be next to the staircase, so should have good airflow up the stairs. With some vents along the walls upstairs, that should promote natural air circulation through that half of the house. Getting the warm air down the halls and into the bedrooms will be the big challenge...so that's where I'm thinking that either the cold air return with the furnace fan distributing the warm air, or perhaps a secondary duct system as suggested in a previous post will be the ticket. Sleeping in a cold(er) bedroom is fine by me, but a cold(er) master bath in the morning might not be appreciated by my wife.

I'm pleased to hear that so many people have managed heating primarily with wood, and have kept their utility bills low. Ultimately, that's the real goal. I love wood heat. I grew up with it, and I consider a day spent cutting, splitting, and stacking firewood a real therapeutic experience...and a good workout to boot. To have a heat source that costs so little to acquire and then use it to save money on the utility bills is the motivation.

I don't yet have the quotes for ICF forms for the basement and spray foam insulation, but I'm hoping I can afford these modern insulating techniques to build a tight structure. I've gotten varying opinions on different heating/cooling options, but universally I've been told to spend more on insulation than to chase after the latest heating/cooling technology.

The primary system is likely to be an air source heat pump with electric plenum back-up. That'll give me access to the electric co-op's off-peak rates, so the utility bill shouldn't be a killer. Yes, I would like to keep the electric heat off as much as possible and use wood to heat the house, but on those really cold snaps (-10 to -20), I may have to ask the plennum to pick up the slack.

Regards,

Kyle

 

[flashhole]

... It will be next to the staircase, so should have good airflow up the stairs. ...

Nope, you can't count on that. The stairwell will act as a natural inversion block. You need active venting, not passive. If you are counting on this being a natural convection flow you will be disappointed.

 

[agstr]

multifuel clean burning water boiler....can use firewood!

There is a British multifuel stove recently out with an efficient water boiler that also looks interesting....dunsleyheat website - Multifuel stoves. Damn those redcoats--what happened to American ingenuity???

 

[rmount]

Sleeping in a cold(er) bedroom is fine by me, but a cold(er) master bath in the morning might not be appreciated by my wife.

If the budget permits, radiant electric under the bathroom tiles can be pretty nice in the mornings.

 

[Blazin]

OWB....the whole house warm (every square inch) and so is the domestic hot water

For the record I did heat with a indoor wood stove for 20 years, a hearthstone to be exact. It depends on how your house is cut up where your heat will be.....

 

[slowp]

How many square feet? How much in windows? Etc. Etc. Etc.

My house gets too warm, but I live in a much milder climate than you. Basements are not a popular item, unless they are the daylight or what you folks call walkout variety.

My house has a large room in the center--where the wood stove is, and bedrooms on either side. There are no hallways. The stove overheats the house if kept going unless we are having a cold snap. I try to mitigate that by opening doors to bedrooms. In our gray, wet climate, big and lots of windows are a must, otherwise we'd be even more depressed. We seldom get warm enough to worry about air conditioning.

There is a ceiling fan that helps to move the heat around. For backup, since we have reasonably priced electricity, every room has a Cadet wall heater. I am not a fan of central heating, and planned this house to avoid having it.

 

[Snojetter]

Why would an open stairway act to restrict airflow? Other comments have stated the stairwells are necessary for good natural flow?

Square footage is 1456 per level (2 levels). Windows probably cover about 50% of the wall area...although my estimate might be pretty shaky. Tough to estimate that when considering the wall height vs. window height. Lots of windows, though. I crave natural light.

Thanks,

Kyle