Furnace or Stove

I am looking to reduce my oil bill this winter (as we all are) and currently have an oil fired steam system with cast iron radiators. Not sure if I should replace the furnace with a coal fired one, or supplement with a stove. I have a second chimney in the house so that is not an issue. Benn reading the forums and see some great comments and have gone to the recommended websites and seen excellent products but would appreciate some advice. Basically my thoughts are:
1) bite the bullet and sink 7-8K in a furnace (which I would have to finance) and get rid of the oil bill, or
2) supplement with a 1500-2000 stove which would reduce the oil bill but not completely eliminate it (It still has to maintain the water temp and we go away for a few days occasionally)
Thanks

hi ray,if you plan on leaving your home you will not want to remove your existing system.keep your o/f boiler and bite the bullet for coal fired boiler.unfortunately you will probably be out of luck as for this season with the demand for coal burning stoves and boilers.the manufacturers are max out in production.

Depending on the size & layout of your house, you may find a stove could possibly provide all your heat. (I have heated my entire 24X44 ft split entry ranch with just a stove for over 25 years) Tell us a little about your place.

Ray,

One of the benefits of living in MA is that the boiler needs to be ASME coded, bringing the price of the unit to 11k, plus installation. But that will break your oil habit for good. One of the reasons that it costs so much is that a steam unit cannot be run in series with your existing boiler like a FHW system can, leaving you with one choice, an EFM DF-520 with the dual fuel option. It needs to be dual fueled to keep your homeowners insurance intact (they will not insure a house with only coal heat).
Freestanding stoves are far less money, and you will get your payback much sooner, but you will still use some oil, but far less of it. The trick now is to get a stove. Keystoker & Harman are done until next Spring. Alaska was not supposed to go out for more than 8 weeks. They are currently at 3 months now, and the "busy season" is not even here yet. If you are serious about buying a stove, you might have 2 weeks (that is when the official "busy season" hits) to act, and then it will be all over but the crying.

Mike

It is a turn of the century vintage farm house in central Mass, appx 1800sqf , unfinished fieldstone basement, living area on 1st floor and bedrooms on second floor. there is an existing coal chute but the bin was removed. We blew in insulation the first year and did replacement windows last year use setback thermostat for day and late night, burned about 750 gal. oil last season.
Thanks to George W. I have the tax incentive on-hand and hopefully will have a purchase by the end of July

R

ray in ma wrote:Thanks to George W. I have the tax incentive on-hand

You're too new for me to pick on you for the above remark!
Do you have a chimney/fireplace on the first floor? (my home is about 2400SF & heated entirely with a coal stove)

Mike: Thanks for the heads up,

Devil5052, I know isn't it ironic? I'm thanking this guy for giving me back my own money

I plan on putting the stove in the basement, plenty of thermal mass with the fieldstone. there are a couple of vents in the first floor floor now, and I will cut in a couple more, plen on one at the top of the stairs to the second floor and hooking up a couple of muffin fans to help circulate.

Sorry I had to drop out las night, but we were getting some bucksnorting thunderstorms.
R

ray in ma wrote:I plan on putting the stove in the basement, plenty of thermal mass with the fieldstone. there are a couple of vents in the first floor floor now, and I will cut in a couple more, plen on one at the top of the stairs to the second floor and hooking up a couple of muffin fans to help circulate.

Close call but I think you may find your basement will suck up way to much of the precious "stove warmed" air before it makes it all the way upstairs. Since your basement is not a living space anyway, why waste the heat down there? If you have access to a first floor fireplace/chimney I think you would do much better placing any stove there.
Others may have a different view.

The new furnace/stove market is tight so finding one may take some work.
If you want to heat with coal this winter do not 'wait for a deal'. If the heater is in good shape and the price reasonable, buy it. Then work on getting the stove you really want that is back ordered for 9 months.
Hitzer http://www.hitzer.com/products/ has a good line of stoves/furnaces and their backorder wait was not too bad.
The basement location will give you warm floors and if you can put some foil faced foam insulation on the stone walls close to the stove along with some reflective insulation http://www.radiantguard.com/index.aspx on top of the foam it should not suck up too much heat.
If you insulate the whole basement cover the top 4 feet of foundation on the inside with foam as that cuts the most thermal loss.
Get a stove with higher output http://www.hitzer.com/model82.html and you should overcome the basement negatives.
The basement is a good spot because your coal is already there, if you do spill the ashes it is not as much of a problem and it would be easier to plumb a DHW coil to the stove.

I would think that if going in the basement is your only option with a small stove then I would say invest in putting in some walls and insulation. If the ceiling height is there you might want to even try insulating the floor to help with any heat loss. Holes in the floor should help with transferring the heat through out your house but you might want to look into running some ducting with a fan to help maximize the heat distribution.

Guys thanks for all the stuff I hadn't thought about but obviously need to as I move forward.

The basement is the only practical place since the chimneys are boxed in on the first floor and not a lot of extra floor space. I hadn't thought of duct work was only thinking of primarily radiant and doing some sort of convection with the muffin fans. Was also thinking if the rock in the basement absorbed the heat, they would radiate back if the stove 'cooled' down. I was also thinking of removing some of the insulation under the first floor to allow the heat to radiate through, would appreciate thoughts on that although I am thinking the ductwork would be more efficient

ray in ma wrote:The basement is the only practical place since the chimneys are boxed in on the first floor and not a lot of extra floor space.

Sounds like good reasons to put it in the basement then. The benefits are obvious (less dust upstairs & better access to the coal, etc) & you can make it work well if you provide enough avenues for the warm air to rise up to the living floors & ways for the cold air to be returned to the basement. (My stove has always been in my finished basement & works great!!)
Read some threads here on air circulation & I bet you'll find this becomes a challenge (to uniformly heat your house) & maybe even a winter-time hobby!

Your coal stove won't 'cool down' like a wood stove,, coal burns for much longer, a hand feed usually for more than 12 hours..a stoker stove will run 24/7 all season long. Don't waste your heat heating your rock foundation, you wil also be heating the ground outside the rock walls, and wasting your precious heat..you will see a nice ring of melted snow and green grass around your house.. NOT what you want to see in January.

Depending on what your floor plan is like on the main level and if you can access one of the 'boxed in' chimneys, it is much more efficient to put all the radian heat from the stove into the living space, not the basement.. moving heat around is a very common topic here on the forum.. many people go to great lengths to keep their basement from being too hot and the rest of the house too cold.

Greg L

Guys thanks again for all the tips,
Greg L not practical to put on first floor, although I agree it wold be much more efficient, no space.

Devil As far as the basement the thought was heat rises so if I get a 60-85000 BTU would have heat to spare, don't care (or should I) if I heat basement thought was it would stay dryer (and maybe hang clothes line)

Will be checking out other threads on how to move heat around

Got a couple quotes for Alaska Liberty 1990 & Kodiak $1749 w/ 8-10 week delivery (puts this righ before heating season in NE)

Many used on local Craigs list but wary of condition

Thaanks agian

ray in ma wrote:Devil As far as the basement the thought was heat rises so if I get a 60-85000 BTU would have heat to spare, don't care (or should I) if I heat basement thought was it would stay dryer (and maybe hang clothes line)

I hang stuff downstairs all winter long & yes, heat rises but the trick is to get it up two levels to heat you upper floor. ( & get the cold air down) Can be done but tougher than my setup which only requires moving heated air up one floor. Certainly read the many threads on air circulation for ideas & you will need to use a few fans to do it. Good luck!