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GettingStoked
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Post by GettingStoked » Wed. Jul. 30, 2008 2:05 pm

Good afternoon all, currently have a bi-level home with electric heat on the first floor and a 40K BTU propane stove in the basement. My question is, if I get a 70 to 90k BTU coal soker stove, to replace the propane, would this also heat the upstairs? I have exposed floor joists (not insulated) to help the heat to rise up to the first floor, as well as two floor vents (not powered currently) I'm thinking with the stove running 24/7 that it would heat the entire house and using cieling fans in the bedrooms (on other side of the house from stove) it would help keep the heat even. What I don't want to run into is the house above the stove having to be 90 to have the bedrooms at 70. Any help would be appreciated. I estimate total space to be 1100 basement and 1500 first floor.

On another note, from what I'm reading and calling around, that I would have to get my order in fairly quickly to get a stove by November... Does that sound about right.. 4 months turn around?

Thanks
Chris


 
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Richard S.
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Post by Richard S. » Wed. Jul. 30, 2008 2:19 pm

You'd be pushing the limits with a 90K unit for a 2600 sq foot house and it probably won't do it. Those units can supply most of the heat for your average 2000 sq ft. home but if you didn't have something to supplement it I'd be leery of depending on it for my sole source of heat.

As for ordering it I would get on the bandwagon as soon as possible. The delivery times for these units are only getting longer.

 
GettingStoked
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Post by GettingStoked » Wed. Jul. 30, 2008 2:41 pm

The first floor is baseboard heating with programmable thermostats, so that is the primary heat. The basement (no heat) would have the 90k BTU stoker stove. I was heating the basement with a propane, so the coal would reduce that bill by 1/4 I believe (havn't crunched the numbers yet) and I would hope with letting the heat rise to the 1st floor it would supplement the electric. I was hoping a 90 would do that, if not what size would you recommed? Thanks for your information, it is helping me greatly.

Chris

 
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Richard S.
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Post by Richard S. » Wed. Jul. 30, 2008 2:50 pm

If you're getting it for supplementary heat that will work outstanding, it will heat the basement and provide a very large amount of the heat upstairs as long as you can get it to circulate. There's a few threads on how to do that. Basically you need to create a cold air return or a way for the heat to loop. The heat will rise so if you have a grate above the stove, basement dorr etc it will want to go up... they key is to have return from the farther side of the house where the cold air can go back down.

Moving the Heat Upstairs

 
GettingStoked
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Post by GettingStoked » Wed. Jul. 30, 2008 5:39 pm

Thanks for all your help.

Chris

 
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Post by traderfjp » Wed. Jul. 30, 2008 5:43 pm

When you run a stoker at full tilt it eats coal very quickly. Why not turn your propane boiler down to 50 to keep the pipes from freezing and then put the stove on the 1st floor? You may not even need the electric heat upstairs. Or get a coal boiler that can do the entire house and add a few radiators to the top level.

 
GettingStoked
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Post by GettingStoked » Wed. Jul. 30, 2008 5:55 pm

The basement is finished and used as much as the 1st floor if not more. So would like it to be toasty as it is with the propane. I plan to build a 3 car garage one of these days ( been saying it for 6 years now) and when I do I'm going to take over the under house garage and then I will put in a boiler and run hydronix (spelling) baseboards or something along those lines... plans change every day. But your idea is deffinetly food for thought. Thanks

Chris


 
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Post by traderfjp » Wed. Jul. 30, 2008 6:21 pm

One more thought. I bought a Channing stoker stove and installed a custom coil, I run the water from my boiler to the coil and back. It does a good job of heating my basement. The oil boiler rarely turns on.

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coil.jpg
.JPG | 571KB | coil.jpg

 
GettingStoked
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Post by GettingStoked » Wed. Jul. 30, 2008 8:04 pm

I'm crunching numbers now, and was wondering if someone from NE PA that has a stoker stove with normal operations can tell me ball park what the number of ton they used last winter it would be a great help.. even if someone has a rule of thumb to go by that would be helpfull as well. Thanks in advance. As it stands now, I spent 2684.85 on heat from 10/08 to 03/08 (1155.61 on propane and 1529.24 on electric). 6 months. Coal in my area is 214 per ton minimum 2 ton delivery. So if you figure 1 ton per month for 6 months that would be 1284.00. I used 440.45 gals of propane last year, and current price is 3.00/gal. That would be 1321.35. Not much of a savings there between the propane and the coal, so I'm hoping i'm missing something here? I think it might boil down to how much of the electricity it can take away.

Chris

 
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Richard S.
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Post by Richard S. » Wed. Jul. 30, 2008 8:10 pm

Generally a 2000 sq. ft home will consume 5 tons a year but that is for complete heat. You can figure you'll burn at least 5 if you keep it ramped up. To give you an idea our home is nearly 4000 sq ft with new windows, newly insulated on all but one side, kids running in and out the doors and we burn about 10 ton a year and that's year round including providing most of the heat for the DHW.

 
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Post by gambler » Wed. Jul. 30, 2008 8:17 pm

I heated my 2000sqft home not including the basement with coal last year and I kept the house at 73 degrees and I do not heat the basement but it stays around 50 down there. My house has good insulation but I have a lot of windows and glass doors and I used just over 4 ton to heat for the entire year. I supose I could have saved some money if I lowered the t-stat a few degrees but I like it to be warm enough to wear shorts and no shirt all winter.

 
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Post by traderfjp » Wed. Jul. 30, 2008 8:52 pm

I'm not from NE PA but I do have a stoker and burned about 3-4 tons of coal last winter heating a 2k sq. ft. house.

 
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Post by Adamiscold » Thu. Jul. 31, 2008 7:49 am

traderfjp wrote:One more thought. I bought a Channing stoker stove and installed a custom coil, I run the water from my boiler to the coil and back. It does a good job of heating my basement. The oil boiler rarely turns on.
Trader that looks like a very big coil, do you have any more pictures of your custom coil and how it's connected? How much hot water do you think you get out of it?
GettingStoked wrote: As it stands now, I spent 2684.85 on heat from 10/08 to 03/08 (1155.61 on propane and 1529.24 on electric). 6 months. Coal in my area is 214 per ton minimum 2 ton delivery. So if you figure 1 ton per month for 6 months that would be 1284.00. I used 440.45 gals of propane last year, and current price is 3.00/gal. That would be 1321.35. Not much of a savings there between the propane and the coal, so I'm hoping i'm missing something here? I think it might boil down to how much of the electricity it can take away.

Chris
Chris for one you can't just go by total price, you have to figure out how many therms (or what ever you call them for propane) equals to one ton of coal. That will give you an idea for how much coal you would need to heat the downstairs and the price. Of course you will save money upstairs since heat raises, but you should install some duct vents to feed and return the air from upstairs and that will help save you a lot of money in electricity.

 
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Post by Rob R. » Thu. Jul. 31, 2008 8:11 am

Propane has an average energy content of 91,333 btus per gallon. Assuming 26,000,000 btus per ton for quality anthracite, it would take roughly 1.6 tons of coal to provide the same heat as your 440 gallons of propane.

As for the electric, do you know how many kilowatt hours you used for heat? Assume 3,412 btus per kilowatt hour electric heat and go from there. I think you will find that the savings with coal are substantial.

-Robert

 
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Post by traderfjp » Thu. Jul. 31, 2008 9:16 am

Here is another pic. The hook up was easy. Basically I have the water from the boiler circulating through the coils and back into the boiler. The side of my stove is nice and pretty again this pic is right after the install.

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pipes in stove.jpg
.JPG | 536.4KB | pipes in stove.jpg


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