I use a jotul woodstove to heat my house. Works great. Main heating system is 50 year old oil fired furnace with hotwater radiators. My problem. I have a rental apartment in basement. Thermostat (1 zone) is in apartment. Renters like it hot in the basement apartment. I have shut all the radiators and wraped them in blankets, but the upstairs where I live is still warm, warm enough that it can easily reach 80+ when the wood stove is burning. I want to get the heat down stairs. The stove is in a large brick fireplace that has an ash pit on the floor. The ash pit goes down to the basment furnace room. I was thinking about putting a fan in ash pit and trying to blow warm air down but am skeptical this will work and am worried about blowing ash all over the place. I would like to put a copper coil or water tank behing stove run pipes down ash pit to a large cast iron radiator i have. put in small pump and relief valve and start pumping. This is a small furnace room which opens to the rest of basement. I don't mind overheating this space. What do you think? any better ideas. Besides turning of the heat and getting an earful?

-- Eric Von (matryx98@hotmail.com), February 16, 2001

Answers

Completely disconnect the upstairs radiators with a valve in the basement that you could open should the need arise in the future. Then the only place being fuel oil heated will be the appartment. Let the tenants pay the fule oil bill. You'll be surprised how quickly they will adjust their heating likes to a more reasonable level.

-- Willy Allen (willyallen2@yahoo.com), February 17, 2001.

Thanks for feedback Willy. I split heat bill with renter. I would put a valve in but can't do it on my system. Radiatiors are feed off main 1 1/4 inch galvanized line. This line feeds both apartment and upstairs so it can't be zoned off. Each radiator has its own valve which I have already shut off. Shut off,Blanketed radaitors still get to warm upstairs.

-- Eric Von (matryx98@hotmail.com), February 18, 2001.

How about putting down some insulation on your floor, such as a thick carpet pad, and then carpet over the top. Either that, or get someone to blow some foam insulation into the spaces between your floor joists.

JOJ

-- jumpoffjoe (jumpoff@echoweeb.net), February 18, 2001.

Jumpoff, I'm trying to get heat from 1st floor down to basement. Wood stove is producing excess heat which I need to get down to basement. Need a good heat transfer system. Anyone have a good design?

-- Eric Von (matryx98@hotmail.com), February 19, 2001.

Without knowing the layout of your place I can make one recommendation Eric. If you check the temp of the room near the ceiling in which you have the woodstove, it might be suprising just how hot it gets up there. One method , if your layout allows it, is to put a louvered grill up near the ceiling and have it do a 90 degree elbow into some sheet metal duct that will fit between the wall studs and go down near the floor of the basement. There are fans that fit right in the duct and can be operated manually or by a thermostat. This might be more work than you want to do but everything would be hidden and it can do agreat job of moving the heat. good luck

-- jz (oz49us@yahoo.com), February 19, 2001.