Newbie With Alot of Questions?

Hey guys and gals. Just joined an hour ago after having a wow moment with an information overload when discovering this site. Little info first, I bought my house(1700 sq/ft ranch rectangle shape with full unfinished basement) a couple years ago with a previously installed reading Lehigh stove with manual controls. Been figuring it out on my own with trial and error. It has a power vent out of the back of the stove. First question) it does not have a monometer, can you recommend a model for me to purchase. Second question) will I burn more coal to keep temps around 65-70 if I put the stove in the basement and vent into current furnace vents and then my basement will be warmer as well?

Welcome to the forum!!! And congrats on having a great option for heating your home inexpensively!!

First you will burn more coal with the stove in the basement. I have mine in our unfinished basement and for us the added warmth down there is worth the extra coal.

The Dwyer Mark II Model 25 is what I use. If you do a search on Dwyer there are many threads showing installation methods folks have used. In the knowledge base (very top bar on screen) there is also an explanation of them.

One of the first things I would recommend is to read up on your stove model from users on here and clean it out thoroughly so you know a little more about the stove and know that you have a good starting point for burning it. Then before firing up get co monitors (digital display), at least one downstairs by the stove and one upstairs.

Thanks for the quick reply. Right now I'm burning roughly 50lbs per day with the strove located in the upstairs living room. Just radiant heat, no blowers. Just use a fan or two to move the heat around. What would be your guess as to how much more I would use if it were in the basement hooked into the furnace ducts?

Yes you would use more coal if you put it in the basement, but you are also increasing the area you are heating with the stove. Hooking it into the existing heating ducts will certainly help distribute the heat by using the furnace's fan.

IF you put it in the basement, I would also consider getting yourself a coaltrol for your unit. With your current setup, you have to guess on how to set the stove before leaving in the morning. With a coaltrol, everything becomes automatic. Need more heat, it will increase the feed by itself.

You mentioned a "power vent " hooked up to the back of the stove. If the fan is directly connected to the stove, it is a direct vent. A power vent is attached to the outside wall of the house. A direct vent pushes the exhaust out of the stove. In this setup, you need to make sure that all the pipe connections are sealed up well or you force fumes into the house. A power vent on the other had sucks the fumes out of the house. Both units require a manometer to monitor the draft of the stove. Too much draft wastes heat and can lead to hopper fires. Too little and you will have other problems.

Any other questions, ask away. You can also find a lot of answers on this site by using the internal search function.

Welcome to the forum.

Rick

Yes I have the power vent in the wall that sucks the exhaust fumes from the stove. Does the pipe have to be straight to use that? If I put it in the basement I will have to use a vertical section of pipe to get it outside.

Having the stove in the basement will keep the floors upstairs warm as well. If you can harness all or alot of the forced hot air from the stove and run it via flex insulated ducting that should do it. If your stove forced air blower doesn't have alot of cfm you can put an inline blower to help feed the hot air up stairs to the register's.
I have mine downstairs and have harnessed all of the hot air and ran it like I said. The part insulated basement stays at a decent temp from the radient heat and upstairs will the benefit from warm floors,quiet (no loud fan's) and more even temps in the rooms. I extended my Harman's room temp probe and it holds the living room area within 2 degrees. We don't have a steady 9-5 lifestyle routine so the house is always steady and warm. Nothing worse then to walk onto a cold Tile bathroom floor at 3:30 am for a rest stop.

I also recommend the coal-trol and upgrading to the constant combustion fan...

As far as relocating the stove to the basement, there are a couple things to consider..
1- obviously the added BTU's you will need to heat the additional space, I am assuming as long as this isn't a split level ranch {or raised ranch} you have a 1700 sq foot basement? This could essentially double your heating needs and since you will also need to heat the basement up warmer than than you currently heat your first floor to get the same temps you are getting now, I would think you could see a lot more coal consumption... Your stoves output maxes out around 85K BTU, 3400 sq feet of well insulated space can easily eat up that energy and leave you needing more heat than the stove can provide on a cold day...

2- is your homes air distribution system going to work efficiently in distributing air from a un-ducted source, since your system returns are most likely up stairs you will need to somehow get your air moving from down stairs to up stairs, this is going to create losses {dw is most likely uninsulated if the home doesn't have AC}...

So with the added expense of running your systems central fan and the added expense of heating the additional space. Is there a reason you would rather have the stove in the basement, is the basement finished, do you use the space daily, do you not like having the stove upstairs, ect?

I had a customer that bought a lehigh 7 years ago, he had 2000 sq ft home and the stove installed on his first floor, he recently finished his basement and clled me up to see what his options were to get heat down there with out using his primary system. We ended up selling him a new lehigh {new burner, coal trol, blower fan, ect} installing that on the first floor and putting his old unit in his basement, since he uses the first floor unit much more... He has noticed the first floor unit uses a little less coal and the basement unit is set at a low temp {62 or so} and spends a lot of time just idling away.

Having the radiant stoves in your living space is the most efficient way to run them, unless there is a reason you want to move your stove, like aesthetics or to free up the space, I would leave it where it is, if the only reason you want to move it is to distribute air better using your furnaces central fan, then I would recommend looking into other air distribution methods, if you have a single level ranch house with an unfinished basement, you can easily run some flex duct and booster fans {or central blower box} and move the heat where ever you want it...