Got stoker - still cold

I haven't had time to play draft detective - I will be doing so possibly this weekend. Older house - probably pretty drafty - I put in some new replacement window on the first floor, but there is little insulation in the walls
the attic has some, but nothing like 12" - its a balloon construction house and all the balloons are sealed with fiberglass in the cellar. I removed most of the insulation from the cellar ceiling with the exception of the perimeter.

Hi Alex,
When you place a stove in the basement it needs to work twice as hard or harder then a stove on the first floor. First your drawing the air from the coldest part of your home, the concrete floor, probably about 58*or colder. Then if your basement walls aren't insulated you will lose about 30% of the heat being sucked through the bare wall, and that's if your walls are in the ground. If your basement walls are exposed and not insulated your looking at a 50% heat loss. These numbers are averages, not written in stone, but that's why furnaces bring cold air from the first floor into the furnace. Usually it's 10 to 15* warmer. Now I'm no math whiz but I'm sure theres something about how many BTU's it takes to raise X amount of air 1 degree, then multiplying it times your total sq. feet of your home, including the basement. I realize this doesn't solve or even help your problem but it will give you a little better understanding on heating the air.
Jer

If you aren't burning any harder after you put your plenum / collector / manifold on, then you are not washing enough the heat off your stove. The heat will just radiate off your manifold, I bet if you put a laser temp or stick a stack temp gauge you’d see it was super hot. My collector doesn’t usually go over 150 f, unless my fans are off.

I think you should stick with forcing your air with your two registers like WNY did with his stoker in his basement. You’ll heat your house nice with 140 degree air blowing out with a good 8 inch booster or two. There isn’t much natural current in your basement, and you’ll lose a lot of heat out of your basement walls.

Just feeling the air is not a good way to test it, 80 degree air keeps my house warm when it’s in the 50s outside… and it feels cold to the touch. You should go to a home improvement store that sells digital indoor/outdoor (with temp probe on a long wire) thermometers. Experiment with it and see where the air is hot. Keep it at your register and then you can see how much hot air the needs to be for you to be warm in your house. If it’s at your register you can get a feel how hard you have to burn. This is a bad time to start figuring this stuff out, so don’t get frustrated.

Don’t be afraid to burn that thing at maxxed out at 90,000 BTUs when it’s super cold. I looked at my tracking paper today. To keep my house warm during those cold -1 windy (-25 wind chill days late last week), I burnt 152 lbs. That’s 6.333 lb / hr. If it was 160lb that would be 2,000,000 btu or 83,333 BTU/hr at 100% efficiently(60-70% for me) if my coal is 80/lb per 1,000,000. Personally my old stove will heat up to over 700 degrees on the cast on my stove. (yeah I overburn, I need to start a discussion on safe overburning.. because I’m not sure how much is too much).

Yes when I had my manifold connected the stove itself aboce the door was reading 450+ - definately not washing enough air off the unit. I made the collector easy to install / uninstall so I will play over the weekend - I have to run a 110V line to operate the sun coast inlines that I bought and I will see if they provide enough pull / push to get >70 degree air out of the registers.

Thanks everyone

Just remember you can have 50 floor vent and they won't do any good unless you have a means of returning cold air from the upstairs. You need a return duct from your upstairs vented to the stoves intake on its convection fans. Also if you are using duct fans with your plenum you may want to back down those 2 265cfm fans. My stove heats best when the fan is running fairly low, but every stove and house like something different. Also Jerry is right you are losing a ton of heat through your basement wall

So - I have a vent directly above the back of the stove. Should I connect a duct to this register and pipe it right down to the floor where the 265cfm fans are drawing from?

My basements walls are underground with the exception of 2 feet where the foundation is exposed. A first floor installation would be much less than practical no matter how cozy it would be.

I hope that inline doens't have plastic blades. They will melt or wilt if they get too hot. If your power goes out you’re not moving much air, and they will get very hot. Even without your blower motor going.

The Suncourt inlines I've seen are rated to 140 f, where metal blade fans are good to 257 to 266f.

This is a great place for metal blade duct fans made in the USA. http://www.airboosterfans.com/

For what it matters, I wish I would have gone with two 10 inch fans 650 cfm, for 1280 total cfm. You can wire them to a speed control and always run them slower.

Good luck this weekend, its almost here!

I'll have to look at the fans to make sure they are metal. If the power goes out the whole stoker is out (comb. blower feeds fire)

I did some quick testing of drafts. It seems that 1 foot above the floor the cold air is moving down the steps and 1 foot below the ceiling hot air up the steps.

My basement to 1st and 1st to 2nd floor steps are stacked on top of each other on an outside wall with the living spaces to the opposite side on the first floor and bedrooms to the other side on the second.

The stoker lives just to the left of the basement stairs as the chimney was right there. Iam really not interested in cutting holes from 1st to 2nd floor in my bedroom for privacy issues so is there any other way to get the air to circulate correctly or am I pissing up a rope here?

If you are putting a cold air return in your bedroom, you are going to install an adapter and a duct to it and run this duct all the way to the inlet of one of the fans on the stove.. So there really shouldn't be privacy issues.

You need a positive cold air return hooked to the inlet of your stove fans. without this you are still pulling very cold air off the floor of the basement.
And this has proven to not work. Some ductwork is needed.

Greg L

[quote="Leisure Line"]Hi Alex,
When you place a stove in the basement it needs to work twice as hard or harder then a stove on the first floor. First your drawing the air from the coldest part of your home, the concrete floor, probably about 58*or colder. ....... END QUOTE . As a test , Do you guys think he could just put a short duct to the ceiling area of the basement so he was drawing IN that warm air instead of the cold floor air?

Hi Dave, it would help, but the cold air return really needs to draw from upstairs. This will start the circulation loop that has to develope to even out the temperatures.

Take a look at this thread:

http://nepacrossroads.com/viewtopic.php?p=7864

Greg L

alexw wrote: I put in some new replacement window on the first floor, but there is little insulation in the walls.

That is probably half if not all of the problem. I don't think people realize how much heat they lose through old windows and unisulated walls. I've had customers cut their coal consumption by 1/3 or more simply by putting new windows in.

LsFarm wrote:If you are putting a cold air return in your bedroom, you are going to install an adapter and a duct to it and run this duct all the way to the inlet of one of the fans on the stove.. So there really shouldn't be privacy issues.

You need a positive cold air return hooked to the inlet of your stove fans. without this you are still pulling very cold air off the floor of the basement.
And this has proven to not work. Some ductwork is needed.

Greg L

LOL My bed room is on the farthest opposite point of the house from the stoker. I would have to cut a hole in the wall run a duct all the way to the basement and then over 23 feet to the back of the stoker? Would the intake
fans even pull air this far out?

As far as insulation yes we need some, but were quoted $5K+ to have it done with a "we'll do out best" garauntee? - maybe next year.

If not the bedroom itself, then somewhere at the far end of the house, if you use 8" duct, 6" minimum you will probably be surprised at the amount of air being pulled from that end of the house.

You really need to get the circulation loop established.. Heat the upstairs, not the basement. A cold air duct will make a huge difference.. If there is an easier spot, like the floor of a hallway just outside the bedrooms, then use that location.

Did you read the thread in the link I posted above?? The first post should sound just about like what you are experiencing, different ideas and fans, nothing much helping untill a ducted cold air return directly to a fan intake, then a huge improvement...

Greg L

Alex, You mentioned you have a vent above the stove. Hold a piece of tp above the vent does it indicate the air is moving upward out of the vent or back down into the basement?