Hi All,
I’ve been thinking of supplementing our home heating with a woodstove. I live in Baltimore in a modest 1600 sq. ft. 2 story home with basement. My wife does not want a woodstove in the livingroom which has a fireplace, and so I was wondering if there was a possibility of setting it up in the basement and tapping into our chimney (which vents our oil-burning furnace) and letting the heat rise through the house. Can anyone give me any feedback or direction here on how I might proceed? I should also mention that the existing heating is forced hot air and I don’t know if tapping into the existing ductwork is a possibility.
Thanks,
Dave
Replies
you need to have seperate flues !! you shouldnt tape into the same flue !! & god forbid if you did & there was a fire what would happen with your homeowners insurance ?? ASK YOUR TOWNSHIP OFFICAL !!! these discussion groups are great !! however the opions are not always the rule !! some people in here can give you the right answer however we are are all guilty of hearing the answers we want to hear ask your township please !!!!
You cannot safely vent an oil burner and a wood burner in the same flue. Chemical reactions could quickly ruin the flue.
And trying to use the same ductwork could well screw up operation of the furnace because of the temp limit switches.
The oil furnace will be designed to increase the temp of the air passing past the heat exchnager a certain amount, with temp sensors to shut down the burrner if it gets too hot. If you try running very warm air from the wood stove past the furnace heat exchanger, it might trip the temp limit switch - although I'm speculating on this aspect.
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"And trying to use the same ductwork could well screw up operation of the furnace because of the temp limit switches."
Bob
I'm not disagreeing with your statement, but....When I purchased my house, the prior owners had placed a wood fired forced air furnace in the garage. The ductwork from it fed into the return for the oil fired forced air furnace in the basement.
Now the idea was that once the wood burners fan kicked in, you'd temporary turn on the oil fired unit's fan on manually, then switch it back to auto after the heat sensor warmed up enough to keep it running without the oilburner kicking in. It did work, but for a variety of reasons I disconnected it all.
Once the wood fired furnace ran out of wood, everything would progressively shut down, and the oil fired furnace would take over.
Jon
I guess if they aren't running at the same time (and, now that I think of it, why would they?) maybe it would work.
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Tool Donations Sought
I'm matching tool donors to a church mission to Haiti - we're shipping a bus converted to a medical facility in (now it looks like) April and can fill it with clothes, tools and all sorts of stuff needed in that poorest of all countries. A few hand tools or power tools can provide a livelihood for an otherwise destitute family. Please email me if you have tools to donate.
Thanks to Jeff and David and Jim and Rich and Steven and Mark and Jason and Shep and Jen and Mike and Joe and Bill and Ken for their offers!
Several donations have arrived! Thanks and God bless!
"guess if they aren't running at the same time (and, now that I think of it, why would they?) maybe it would work"
Bob,
Properly done,i t could have I think, but the way the prior HO's installed it,...... Let's just say I could go through a cord of wood in a week and barely keep the house warm.
.........and that's probably why the bank foreclosed.....
Jon
The other guys are right that venting into the same flue isn't a good idea. Personally, I think the ideal situation is a masonry chimney with a metal liner. Can't be too careful.
I really like wood heat, so using a wood stove only seems natural to me. I have one in my basement now. It warms up the basement, which warms up the floors of the house. Sort of a "redneck radiant" heat. It also keeps the humidity down in the basement durung the winter - Makes the workshop a lot nicer.
Making sure your band board area is insulated will help keep a lot of the heat in down there. Otherwise you're likely to lose a lot of it.
Some wood stoves that you buy have a blower that kicks on with a thermostat, and a relay that kicks on your furnace blower at the same time. That works O.K., I guess. But if you let the fire go out, the furnace blower blows air backwards through the stove. Doesn't make sense unless you plan to keep the wood stove going 100% of the time.
Before you put one in, it would be wise to check with your insurance company. Some won't insure houses with wood heat. The company we use charges 15% more with wood heat.
Keep in mind too that the payback may be several years on the wood heat. You'll spend quite a bit of money on the wood stove, chimney, and on the wood itself. It takes a while to pay for itself.
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Dave,
I am just a DIY'er south of you in Davidsonville in a 2,500 sq.ft rancher on a full basement. So take this with a grain of salt. I have wood stoves on both levels. Definitely get the stove hooked up to it's own chimney and make sure you have sufficient makeup air so you don't start back drafting any other combustion appliances.
Is your basement finished and do you have vents and return duct work in the basement? If you do, then you can ge a little of that "redneck radiant" Boss is talking about. Simply turn on the furnace fan and allow it to circulate the warm air. Not real efficient, but it works ok.
if you really want to get all that serious about wood heat, look into combination oil/wood or gas/wood furnaces.
You cannot use the same chimney flue. There was a time thirty years ago when it was allowed IF the size of the flue could carry ehaust of both units at one, meaning that you needed a bigger flue. But the rise in the number of wood burning appliances in the late seventies provided many examples of why this is not efficient and sometimes dangerous. Codes and insurance companies now frown heavily on shared flue installations.
Sharing ductwork is another thing. It can be done along lines mentioned, but it can more expensive than worth to do so it is best tosimply run the fan only on the furnace central system to move warmed air if you need to
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We have a wood stove in the finished basement and love it.
Separate chimney. We use the insulated metal chimney pieces from basement ceiling to roof. Pretty easy to install if you can find a place to create a chase. Costs about $15/ft as I recall.
We didn't (And I wouldn't suggest trying it) try to integrate the system into the furnace & preexisting ducts. We rely on the redneck-radiant system which works like this for us;
We have winters colder than you and burn wood most days from November 1st to about now. My goal is always to avoid having the furnace kick in at all, but that's not always convenient, so I'd say we consume about a 1/2-3/4 of a therm of gas a day in the furnace. Our house is a 1 1/2 story, with roughly 800 sq ft on each of the three levels. Only moderately insulated. The furnace fan does circulate air every 15 minutes or so. Our stair well is open to allow for air flow and we have two "vent" locations between basement and main floor that allow air to move directly on its own.
Average temp outside 30 degrees: 6-hour burn, no furnace
Average temp outside 20 degrees: 9-hour burn, no furnace
Average temp outside 10 degrees: 12-hour burn, furnace kicks in briefly in the AM to take the chill off.
Average temp outside 0 degrees: 15-hour burn, furnace in the AM to take the chill off.
We obviously have heat stratification between the three levels but we have learned to enjoy it rather than whine about it. We try to maintain 68 on the main level, which means the basement will be around 78 and the finished attic space we sleep in will hover around 60.
We consider 60 tolerable for cozy sleeping. We particularly like using the basement media room in the winter dressed only in a t-shirt and feeling completely warm instead of just tolerably warm, as is too often the case for many people in winter.
Even though we clearly save money on natural gas every winter (maybe $500-700 over the five months) it's not clear we really save much money overall when the cost of cutting, splitting & hauling wood ourselves is factored in - to say nothing of the $2000 the stove & chimney cost DIY. If you buy the wood from someone else you clearly will not save money. But we love it. Without it, our basement would always be chilly and I would see dollar signs in my mind floating out the window every time the weather forecast called for a cold front. Instead, cold weather just means I have to start the day's fire just a little earlier.
Good luck. If you're not completely sure about how to do a chimney & chase don't do it yourself. You don't want to burn your house down or pull in exhaust gasses.