Radiant or Blower for Basement

I'm installing a coal stove in my basement to heat the first floor as well as the basement. With the open beams, the heat should pass nicely up through and heat the floor and the first floor. Also, the stairs will carry the warm air up stairs.
I am looking to install a stoker that can be used as a furnace with a 750 cfm blower but don't plan on hooking it up to duct work. Just want the hot air to circulate and rise. Would it be smarter to use a radiant stoker stove instead of the furnace type heater and just let the hot air rise off the stove.. with a little air mover.. say around 250-300 cfm helping out vs going with the windowless... simple model that has the greater air moving capacity. The basement is about 800 sq foot rectangle. Am planning on keeping the basement about 75 degrees in the winter... as I also have my office there so don't want it too hot or too cold. Appreciate any input.
Thanks

This has been discussed many times over.
Distribution is only as good as the ability of the cold air circuit to get back (return) to the burner/stove.

Getting the heat away from the burner/stove is only but half of the equation.

Sometimes/some situations things work near effortlessly...other times it takes some/or lots of effort/assistance.

Understood and between the natural tendency of cold air to fall just as hot air rises, and with unrestricted flow of the cooler air being able find it's way into the basement via the stairs and existing duct work, I am thinking that the cold air part won't be a real problem.. so long as the hot air finds it's way up. But I am new to this and lack the hand's on experience.. which is why I am asking here.

I am remembering when I lived in a second floor (of three) apartment in Minnesota... I never had to turn on the heat because the warmth from the first floor apartment provided all the heat through the floors I needed to be comfortable.

Our home is an 1890's farm house that does have good attic insulation and new double pane windows and insulated vinyl siding... so it's not perfectly insulated but also not awful when it comes to insulation. It's about 1850 sq feet and I have been using an 85k BTU LP furnace. I will be adding an 85K BTU stoker stove on the first floor in addition to the basement unit for a total of about 170K BTU so I'm not worried about keeping warm as much as I am making the right choice for the basement unit when it comes to disbursing the heat throughout the basement ceiling (first floor floor).

Should I really push the air around to get it circulated and away from the furnace or should I let it rise naturally so as to keep it all on the ceiling with minimum help from blowers??

With that being said, then let gravity take it's course, but keep an open mind... fans may come into play during fridgid and/or blustery times. Sounds like you will be fine since you have a heater on each of the 2 levels. You could even try w/ upper basement door closed.

I would vote for the furnace type stoker in the basement. I have been thourgh this before and as stated above by McGiever, it depends on the house. I tried installing a stoker stove in my basement and the only part of the floor that heated up was right above the stove. I put a box fan at the top of the stairs to pull the heat out of the basement, that worked OK but the bedrooms were very cold. I took the stove out, put it in a freinds Victorian house, in the center room (where the Victorians disigned the stove to be) and it heats the house great!

If you get the furnace type, you can hook it to your duct work if it doesn't work out.

-Don

StokerDon wrote:
If you get the furnace type, you can hook it to your duct work if it doesn't work out.

-Don

Exactly my thinking Don... thanks

Any idea how that might affect the actual furnace with me pumping warm air into the intake?? I suppose it would lessen the effectiveness of the air return registers throughout the house which would divert more air down the stairs into the basement.. unless I provide an alternate route.... like an open register between the first floor and the basement.

I doubt you will get the heat you want upstairs. Downstairs will always be hot. It just doesn't flow up like you think in any typical home. Ask me how I know.. Get a unit that will block off the air to the basement and duct it upstairs. Set the thermostat and enjoy the steady heat. My Harman Super Mag totally blocks off the forced air into my basement and routes it to duct work going upstairs to my living area. The radiant heat off the stove (steady radiant heat) keeps the uninsulated basement a perfect steady 68 deg. Upstairs stays 70 deg which we want no matter what the outside temps.

revtim,

Here is a photo of my setup. I bought this house a few years ago and lucky for me there was a small wood furnace installed through a seprate plenum, no return duct. I removed to wood burner and put a Harman in it's place. In winter I pull the air filter out of the return duct to the oil furnace, tape a piece of cardboard to it and put it back in. This blocks off the retun ducting, otherwise the hot air from the Harman would blow down through the AC coil and the oil furnace. The downside is I need to keep the basement door open a little to get return air to that big blower. I have been using this blower setup for 3 1/2 years now and it works well. Currently I have a hot water coil in the plenum above the Harman that comes from a boiler in the garage, still works well.

Harman furnace with blower and plenum. Oil furnace is to the left.
Hot water coil in Harman plenum. -Don

I agree, pump the warm air thru the duct work and have a way for cool air to get back to it, to complete the circuit..

Lightning wrote:I agree, pump the warm air thru the duct work and have a way for cool air to get back to it, to complete the circuit..

All I do for a cold air return is leave the basement door open from the living area That's were the stove is. I can feel the cold air flowing down the stairs when coming up them. When I had the young grand kids I shut it and it still worked good enough. Heat blows out of that register I have from the Harman and fills the living area plenty still.

I have a box stove in my basement and blow the heated air into my return vents as well. When winter really gets pissed off like last year, the stove in the living room takes over. Because my basement is UNinsulated I loose a lot of heat through the basement walls so I think a furnace type coal appliance is best...unless you put a small coal stove in your living room as well

He says he's adding an 85,000 BTU stove upstairs...so....1 up and 1 down.
That changes things a bit.