Login required to started new threads

Login required to post replies

Heater for Basement
Quote | Reply
 
We just finished a fairly large 14 x 20 room in our basement. Our home has forced hot air, including a single duct in the room we finished in the basement. However, with our heating system our house has one zone. Once our living room reaches temperature, the furnace turns off and the basement stays 15 to 20 degrees below the upstairs. I'm looking for a recommendation to heat the room downstairs. We bought an infrared portable 1,500 watt heater which hardly made a dent in the temperature after 90 minutes. Looking for any suggestions.

thanks,
Quote Reply
Re: Heater for Basement [Harry] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
Does the basement flood? Do you use it a lot? Is it finished? Lots of questions.
Why not put some more duct work with good on off vents to have better coverage?

If your furnace isn't big enough to handle basement and upstairs, why not simple baseboard (if room stays dry)?
Quote Reply
Re: Heater for Basement [Harry] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
You need closer to 3500 watts.
Quote Reply
Re: Heater for Basement [ruby1] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
The basement is dry. No flooding at all. We just refinished one room, dry wall/ drop ceilings, etc. two weeks ago and literally just furnished couch, TV, Foosball, darts, air hockey, etc. We refinished it to provide a separate place for kids to hang out. Since we just refinished it, I have no idea how much it will be used but I expect a lot.

The problem with the heat isn't the size of the furnace but forced hot air and one heating zone. Our house is very well insulated and receives a ton of sunlight. For instance, when I left the house at 6am yesterday, I turned the thermostat down from 70 to 63. When I came home at 4:30, it was only down to 65 despite the weather being in the 30's all day. When I turned the thermostat up to 70, it only took 30-45 minutes to heat the upstairs before it turned off, which did little for the basement. I supposed I could add some more vents down there but unless I turn the thermostat up to 80+, I don't suspect it would make much of a difference.

Ideally, I'd like a high power space heater(s) to solve the problem, but will consider a pellet stove long-term if I can't find anything.
Quote Reply
Re: Heater for Basement [Harry] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
I'd put in either 1-2 pieces of electric baseboard or an electric wall heater (with blower).
2-5' strips of baseboard would be plenty. You can get them with an integral thermostat or have a wall mounted stat.
Quote Reply
Re: Heater for Basement [Harry] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
Space heaters pull a lot of current. Consider natural gas or propane.

We're in Savannah, GA. We got some unusually cold spells this winter where the temp dropped to mid 20's. Like many homes in the area, we have no furnace, only heat pumps. Heat pumps usually have Aux Heat available, which is like a space heater inside of your heat pump. It's purpose is to help the heat pump when the temp gets particularly low. Heat pumps don't heat the house well when it's really cold outside. They're better for mild climates.

The Aux Heat doubled our normal Winter power bill. Was a bummer. Short term I grabbed the propane heater out of the attic and put it in the family room along with a big jug of propane. That thing puts out an incredible amount of heat. It totally blows away any electric space heater of reasonable size.

Long term we're going to connect the house up to natural gas next Fall. The water heater is on it's last legs so we'll put in a "tankless" natural gas water heater and a "vent free" fireplace. For those that are not familiar with vent-free fireplace, it's just what it sounds like. No chimney needed. All that hot air comes into the room. Puts out an incredible amount of heat. The lawyers note that if you mess up the install there could be some small amount of combustion products produced so just don't run it all the time. It's something to use when the area is occupied, not something to use over-night. I'm going to put it in the fireplace and run it with the flue closed.

What I really wanted to do was put a natural gas heater in our family room. That would be a more elegant solution than putting a propane space heater in the room during the Winter. But the natural gas heater idea failed. I couldn't come up with a way to do it that Mrs RG would agree to.

Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart
Quote Reply
Re: Heater for Basement [Harry] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
If you allow the air to circulate by leaving the furnace fan on, the temperatures in the house will equalize and you shouldn't have to deal with additional heaters. Provided there is a cold air return in the basement as well.
Most modern furnaces have fans that draw little power so leaving them running will cost very little. I live in a two story home with a basement and when it's really hot in the summer the upper level can get quite hot since the thermostat is on the main level. Constant air circulation ensures more even temperatures throughout the house both upstairs and in the basement. I do the same during times of year when the basement is too cold and the temperatures always even out.

A false humanity is used to impose its opposite, by people whose cruelty is equalled only by their arrogance
Quote Reply
Re: Heater for Basement [Chri55] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
Chri55 wrote:
If you allow the air to circulate by leaving the furnace fan on, the temperatures in the house will equalize and you shouldn't have to deal with additional heaters. Provided there is a cold air return in the basement as well.
Most modern furnaces have fans that draw little power so leaving them running will cost very little. I live in a two story home with a basement and when it's really hot in the summer the upper level can get quite hot since the thermostat is on the main level. Constant air circulation ensures more even temperatures throughout the house both upstairs and in the basement. I do the same during times of year when the basement is too cold and the temperatures always even out.

This and close off a couple vents near your thermostat and you should be golden.
Quote Reply
Re: Heater for Basement [Harry] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
Electric wall heater with blower.
Quote Reply
Re: Heater for Basement [nameless ghoul] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
Thanks,

We ended up getting a hardwired 4,000 watt heater and does the trick perfectly on an on-demand basis.
Quote Reply
Re: Heater for Basement [Harry] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
Harry wrote:
The problem with the heat isn't the size of the furnace but forced hot air and one heating zone. Our house is very well insulated and receives a ton of sunlight. For instance, when I left the house at 6am yesterday, I turned the thermostat down from 70 to 63. When I came home at 4:30, it was only down to 65 despite the weather being in the 30's all day. When I turned the thermostat up to 70, it only took 30-45 minutes to heat the upstairs before it turned off, which did little for the basement. I supposed I could add some more vents down there but unless I turn the thermostat up to 80+, I don't suspect it would make much of a difference.

The problem is air circulation, If you did not put a return air duct in the room, the inlet can only let air to replace the air that leaves, and depending on doors etc, there may be little room for air to escape and therefore compared to the rest of the house, that I will assume was done by a professional and is balanced, very little of that hot air is getting in the room, hence why running the furnace for 30 min heated the entire rest of the house (xxx sq ft) but didn't make a dent in the small basement space. Most houses (especially ones built say before 2000ish - again depending on building style and builder knowledge) do not have enough return air ducts. I would expect if you put in a return air duct to that room you would notice a big improvement.

I think someone mentioned running your fan during the day, yeah if your furnace is not running much in a day (sounds like you may only have it running for a couple hours a day) you might want to have the fan run more. I personally don't buy into the whole daily temperature changes, for many reasons; first as you experience if you set a huge drop during the day, the furnace wont move and air wont circulate, then if you have a huge jump up the furnace is going to have to run continuously for a long time, makes it hard to size the furnace and get good air flow. Then you have the fact that your temp is making big swings and so may your humidity, and wood objects don't like that so your adding a lot of daily stress to anything in your house that is wood. Finally I am not sure in a well sealed house how much your actually saving, since your heat loss is not much (Heat loss is a factor of delta temp so the closer the outdoor and indoor temps the slower the house leaves that's the idea) but if there isnt much loss the delta savings is small, just instead of injecting a small amount of energy several times a day and getting the balance of circulating that air you just burn a bunch of energy at the end to bring everything back up to temp. Then you have cold furniture and warm air (since it will take long for objects to heat up). I also wonder if you think your getting tons of solar heating during the day, are those rooms much warmer than the rooms that don't get much sun all day long (again if your furnace isnt move the air there wont be much mixing)

Anyhow, enjoy the new room sounds like a great hang out.

Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.
Quote Reply
Re: Heater for Basement [Harry] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
T-bar ceilings?

Thoughts are increase ducting down there and keep it as one system.

I just installed prodigy diffusers in three of our offices...not cheap but work great.

Also you can get thermostats that have multiple probes so you can damper/ one system for two floors, take the average etc.

Maurice
Quote Reply