Heating a house

[Don]

I have a 1700 square foot house on a crawl space foundation with the bedrooms on one end of the house and a living room/dining room/kitchen on the other. I have propane water and heat.

To make a long story short the living room/dining room/kitchen area stays colder than the rest of the house. I have had the system looked at and it is working fine.

I have a fire place "insert" with chimney. The house is about 6 years old. Wanted to put in a gas log but my gas bill is crazy. I have to get my tank filled up 3 or 4 times a year.

Debated putting in a wood burning stove as I remember having one when I was younger and they heated a house up quickly. But someone said i would probably have to change the chimney pipe ot the "double insulated kind" Not sure what that means. My chiney is at the end of my house and outside and covered with vyinle as is the entire house. Is changing the pipe something I could do myself?

What other options are there for me? I have even debated putting in those fake electric logs that put out heat but how much heat do they put out? Would it warm a small living room?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

[Charles Spitzer]

you might try an oil filled rollaround heater.

[m Ransley]

Increase wall, crawlspace, and attic insulation, cheapest in the long run.

[Elmo]

Where is the thermostat located? Is it in the warm area or the cool area? Is there something about the cool area that makes it loose heat faster than the warm area (more windows, uninsulated door, etc.) or does the heat simply not get to the cool area?

[JMartin]

Gas logs are designed for aethestic purposes only. They are not designed for heating and are very inefficient at doing so.

When they are installed, it is a common practice to put a stop in the chimney damper, thus making it impossible to close the flue up. This is to prevent CO problems, but you then have a constant drain of heat from your house...straight up the chimney.

Jena

[PrecisionMachinisT]

If its a ducted system, I might look into rebalancing the duct work so that not so much heat is going into the back bedrooms--lets face it, how much time do you spend in the bedrooms anyways ???

[Joseph Meehan]

Yea, it is working fine. However was it properly sized, with a properly designed distribution system and installed properly? The answer is NO. If it was you would not have part of the house too cold!

You need to get a real tech in to look at the home and do the "Manuals" needed to find out what you need. You can not fix the problem with a bandaid.

[Bob]

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If what you have in the fireplace is what is normally called an "insert", it IS a wood burning stove. Does it have a fan to circulate heat around the part hidden in the fireplace? Have you tried it? I used my insert last year for all the heat in my house.

In any case, opening the vents where it is cold, and partially closing those where it is not should help. Insulation additions will help more, and save $ also.

Bob

[Don K]

Dollars to donuts, you would probably get the most bang for the buck by increasing your insulation over that crawl space.

Also whenever you have a fire going, cold air is being sucked into the house to replace the air going out the chimney, unless that insert has an outside air intake.

Don't fool around with the chimney unless and until you know what you're doing.

Any electric heater is just as efficient as any other, if that's what you want.

Don

[Fogbank]

I have hot water radiation - oil fired and when I moved in and got my first big oil bill i almost croaked. I installed a "pacific energy" wood stove insert in my old fireplace and it is excellent. stainless steel liner in the exhisting stack. paid for itself in oil savings in the first 1 and 1/2 years. I was thinking about a propane insert but thats another monthly bill. if you have acess to wood i think it's the way to go. If you have an exhisting chimmney the brick itself + a single liner (stainless steel) it's pleanty safe pending the codes in your area.

[PaPaPeng]

What about ceiling fans to help distribute the heat around evenly. They'll real cheap to install and run and is good for winter or summer.

[Lou]

You don't say one way or the other, and no one else has brought it up - where are the ducts? Are they running under the floor, through the crawl space? Are they insulated?

If you need a new chimney for a wood burning stove, you need a new chimney for the fireplace insert - don't fool around with this, the last thing you want is a house fire. In any case, a wood burner will heat a ROOM pretty quickly, depending on the size of the room and the size of the stove, but after living with one for 10 years in a 2000 square foot house, my experience leads me to doubt it'll heat the HOUSE quickly. If you want to use wood to heat the whole house (as opposed to just one room) unless you get your wood for free it's almost certainly going to cost more than gas. Not to mention that heating with wood is work - a lot of work - you have to really want to do it.

You don't say what kind of windows you have. If they're not the real efficient double or triple glazed type, nice and tight, you should have either storm windows or failing that, cover the windows with clear plastic - kits should be available at the local hardware or big box store.

Even if the heater is working right and the ducts are either in the heated space or insulated, it sounds like the system could/should be balanced to direct more of the heat to the main living area and reduce the heat delivered to the bedrooms. At the very least, you could close the vents in the bedrooms and keep the doors to those rooms closed.

Another possibility is that some of the ducts are partially blocked with construction debris - maybe you should have the ducts cleaned.

Your local utility may have an energy audit program - they come out and check out the house and make energy conserving suggestions. It may even be done at no cost to you - give them a call and see.

Do your neighbors heat the same way? Have you compared notes with them? How does your propane usage compare with theirs? How does your comfort level compare with theirs?

[Tallgrass]

This is exactly the problem my parents' house has, and has had for the last 37 years. Not sure about the furnace being the wrong size, but the original AC did have to be replaced, and we were told it was indeed too small for the job.

My folks' place is a tri-level, and the heat goes right up the center stairwells. Closing off the bedrooms and the vents to these rooms has helped push some of the warm air toward the kitchen.

Also, keeping the garage door closed helps immensely, as it faces North and the garage is adjacent to the dining room. Additionally, stacking bales of straw along the outer walls of the kitchen and dining room help. A space heater has been the ultimate solution, if/when the oven is not being used.

Hopefully needless to say.....the flu to the fireplace Must be closed when the fireplace is not in use. Makes a Huge difference in the temperature of the house.

Regarding woodburners....I was told, just this last summer, that to put a woodstove into my polebarn would necessitate a *triple* insulated chimney, much more than what is required of a standard gas furnace. Big bucks, I was also told, altho I am not that sure that this contractor really wanted to do the job in the first place.

Assuming your place is adequately insulated, I would look for additional sources of heat loss. You are using a huge amount of gas.

ymmv... Linda H.

[Don]

What is that?

[Don]

The warm area of the house is the beddrooms which are on one side. The living room is at the other end and is more "open". The thermostat is on the bedroom side.

The living room is the farthest form the furnance. The living room has more windows and doors.

[Don]

My duct is insulated and in the crawl space. I am not sure if what I have is an "insert" or not. I think it was designed for gas logs. My chiney is not brick but wood and vyinle.

I have tried closing off the vents in other rooms but it does not help.

I have free wood to cut available to me.

Thanks for your help!

[willshak]

[Larry Caldwell]

The one my mom has is a completely enclosed glass front unit with a heat exchanger and air circulating fan. It is not too bad for efficiency, heating by both radiation and hot air. Of course, when the power goes out its efficiency drops way off, but it will still radiate enough heat to warm someone sitting in front of it.

I'm a real fan of 19th century technology. This got me to thinking about wing back chairs, which were designed to keep you warm facing a fireplace. I don't know anybody who owns one any more.

When I was in college, one place I rented had a gas heater that heated a vertical gas grill about a foot high and 18" wide. There were heat exchanger fins above that. The grill would glow bright red and put out a lot of heat, and the heat exchanger would scavenge what was left over. I have never seen anything like it since. It put out as much heat as a wood stove.

[John Barry]

And ... with any stove, if you run it much of the time with uncontrolled draft, you'll not get any efficiency. The impact will be determined by the difference between inside/outside temps, and we got not clue as to area climate.

IOW, as possible, close the doors; regulate the draft.

Then there are the issues of sealing at connection to flue and distributing heat from the insert, which can be hugely important. Later.

HTH, John

[N]

Sounds like my place! That big living area is hotter in summer and harder to air condition too.

We put in a gas log in our conventional fireplace in the living room, but the gas log really provides mostly a decorative effect and very little heat. If I were you, I wouldn't bother with a gas log.

Beats me. I'd ask a woodstove dealer. And would you be OK with keeping up with something that is actually burning in your home and would require you to have a steady supply of firewood?

I doubt it would be much heat.

IMHO, your cheapest and easiest solution is to get an electric space heater. You can get an electric space heater with a thermostat that will help you keep your place at a comfortable temperature. Make sure to get an electric heater with a fan to spread the heat around the room. In summer, store the heater.