Trade Offs

Seems with every positive, there's a negative. Honing in on fine tuning my little Surdiac, and have had it burning continuous for almost 2 weeks now, (with the help of my wife and daughter). Seems I've got it down to burning approx a bag a day (tho the day-time highs are still almost 40*), and the house is a toasty 72-74 average. Unfortunately, my woodworking shop is in my basement, (that time of year), and due to the heat from my stove on the main floor, my thermostat never calls for heat from my forced hot air system, which all the ducting is in the cellar, and used to keep it about 60+ degrees down there. Now my basement is somewhere less than 50 something degrees. (I know, spoiled..right?). Not too comfortable W/O a jacket, that I prefer not to wear down there. So I put a small kerosene space heater on to take a little bit of the bite out of the air, and now the stink is rising to the main floor. Guess I'll just have to live with wearing a thermo and sweatshirt. If only I could get the air from my living room ceiling to "sink" to floor level and go through my return, into the cellar. (Don't really want anymore fans blowing in that area.)

You could consider putting the thermostat in the basement. Or you could experiment by disconnecting it at the furnace down there and putting a temporary one down there in its place. Or in a location that is less effected by the stove heat.
Or if you have any dampers in your ductwork, you could get the furnace to heat the basement without sending hot air you don't need upstairs.
Good luck!

There's an alternative, Dan. Don't think I'ld want to put a thermostat down there, due to the limited insulation, but putting the furnace in manual mode, closing off most of the dampers, and opening a duct into the cellar, I could temporarily put some heat out. Something to consider. Thanx for the

Second stove in the basement. Depending in the height of the house used stainless chimney can be bought pretty cheaply and if it was used for wood is probably in good shape.

How bout this idea FB. Now that the Surdiac is holding it's own for living space heating, I've got this "huge" forced hot air Thermo-pride furnace taking up valuable floor space in my cellar. It has its own brick chimney running up through the middle of the house. Maybe I should sell the furnace, and hook a wood stove in the basement workshop to the existing chimney. The reason for wood rather than coal, is for the "easy" lighting, and quick heat. That would also free up some more floor space. "OR", I could ditch the Surdiac, put in one of the monster coal burners like alot of you guys have to heat both the house "and" cellar. Lots of possibilities I guess.

I use a wood stove in my shop but it isn't part of the house so in my situation it is great for quick hot temps to bring the shop up to a comfortable level (plus I have about 5 cords of wood split and stacked I need to use up).

I think in your situation something like a large DS or Hitzer that may be able to get duct work to your existing ducts might be worth checking into, then you can heat your dhw as well ?

Lots of possibilities but I think you should have some form of automatic heat to use in the event you leave the house for a few days.

Good point>(my decimal point button is stuck on upper case>hope that"s not a sign of how the day will be>)