How to heat a below grade in old house?!
I have a house in Michigan, built in 1960. I have lived in it just over one year.
The house is a split level with the family room floor four feet below grade. When the house was built the family room forced air ducts were put in under the slab…but they were cardboard. Eventually, they collapsed and filled with sand.
A previous owner then installed a baseboard radiator…but used the domestic hot water heater as the boiler. I have some concerns about drinking boiler water so I had the radiator disconnected from the hot water heater.
Now I have a 12′ x 26′ family room with no source of heat (and the walls of the house are not insulated). I’m investigating at least 5 options and I would like opinions as to the cost, performance, reliability, and efficiency of each. The family room is also my kid’s playroom, so I want something safe for small children to be near (e.g., no space heaters sitting in the middle of the floor).
1) Remove the carpet, cut into the concrete slab, replace the ductwork, patch the concrete put the carpet back in place. I am thinking insulated, waterproof duct work. (There has been some water in the basement, but I am hoping that adding gutters and regarding so that the ground slopes away from the house will take care of this.) The house has a brand new furnace, and heating contractors assure me that the furnace and number of registers are adequate to do the job. Estimated cost is $3500 (ballpark).
2) Buy a boiler. Estimated cost $3500 (ballpark)
3) Install a direct vent gas fireplace with blower and thermostat. AFUE is less than 70%. Estimated cost $5700, and I have to finish it with a mantle, trim, and hearth.
4) Install a fan-forced electric furnace (Marley ‘F’ series) in ceiling of the family room with a thermostat. Estimated cost $2375 for one (16,382 BTU/hr) or $3150 for two (27,304 BTU/hr). Contractor thinks 15,600 BTU/hr is sufficient but that two would give a more even heat distribution.
5) Instead of putting new ductwork in the floor, rip out drywall in the wall and ceiling to install ductwork and registers in the ceiling. This would involve removing drywall in the study between the basement (where the furnace is) and the family room. Estimated cost “no cheaper than #1” according to the contractor who would do #1, but “surely it must be less” according to my father who has no particular expertise other than being a general handyman in the “Fudge-it” School of Carpentry.
6) Some other method. Options 1-5 each would cost more to heat just one room of the house than it cost to get the new furnace which heats all the rest of the house.
Replies
First of all you need to price electric utility rates vs NG in your area.
But you have a couple of other options.
One you an get a heat exchanger so that you can tie it into the DWH but keep it isoltated.
2. But another WH just for the baseboard heat.
3. Electric baseboard heat.
First - Welcome to Breaktime.
You will likely have a much greater return on investment insulating the basement walls first, more payback than any other endeavor - once that is done, you may not need much heat in the basement other than what comes thru the floor and no horrendous heating bills.
Yeah, I should but I don't think there are quick and easy savings there. Insulating the upper half of the walls would require cutting holes in the siding from the outside and blowing cellulose in, or cutting the drywall and doing it from the inside. Insulating the bottom half of the walls would require removing t&g pine paneling and putting up rigid foam.
I took that attic from 4" of fiberglass to 16" of blown in cellulose last January, and that made a huge difference. It cost about $800 in materials and rental fees. My sense is doing the walls would be more costly and less of a payback. Would you concur?
Because the room if below grade and on a cold slab, I will want some source of heat regardless.
Seems to me there isn't a whole lot to be lost but time, if you would try to clean out the existing ductwork.
Get a shopvac and a drain snake and go to work.
Extend it's reach through the ducts with pvc pipes.
Politics: The blind insulting the blind.
I am liking this idea more the more I think about it. I have tried once, but I didn't have a long enough hose.
I suppose there would still be concerns about air quality for the air coming through those old (moldy?) cardboard tubes, but i could hook it up for a bit to see if redoing the ductwork would give sufficient heat.
If you don't have a great big shop vac, here's your excuse for a new toy, er.. tool.A drain snake should be good for spinning around in there and knocking everything loose, as well as grabbing some of the cardboard. Get a powered one, or use a half inch drill to spin it. (Another toy, er tool.)Use pvc pipe as needed for extensions. Other kinds of stiff wire and stuff for hooks, etc.If you end up needing to knock just a bit of concrete out of the way at some points, hey that's better than tearing absolutely everything up.As for mold and mildew... Add a piece of duct to the end of each duct and aim it out a window. Use cardboard for your duct extensions. Or whatever else is handy. Just turn the furnace blower on. Turn off all other ducts in the house. And let the furnace blow through these ducts nonstop for a few months. By winter, they should be dry enough. And in winter they are going to have heated, (DRY), air blowing through them.If you are really worried about mold and such, you could slide plastic sleeves into the ducts.I really think that even if you have to cut out a little concrete here and there, and even if you use plastic sleeves, this is going to be the best solution. Less costly, and you end up with a system working the way it was intended.
Edited 7/7/2006 7:20 pm by Luka