House Layout; Opinions? Guesses?

Hello,

I have an odd layout for my home and some odd circumstances. Just looking for thoughts, ideas, opinions, etc.

I have a Leisure Line, Pioneer, top vent w/ power vent coming in. Install date of November 6th. I am in R.I. and it can get very cold, snowy, and windy here. My house is on ledge (can we say brrrr) and solid as can be. Built in '56, we remodeled everything within the last 9 years; new windows (although, we can feel a draft here and there because they are getting older and were not top of the line when we got them), etc. The house is insulated and we have two levels to be heated by this stove. We have another level above us that we rent out, with an insulated attic above that, but we are not heating these floors with coal. We are using oil for the third level (1300 square feet).

Here's the layout for my unit (2000 s.f. all together):

If you are looking at my house from the street, there is a front porch smack dab in the middle of the house. To the left, a garage that is 600 square feet and runs the length of the house to the back yard (40 feet long). This is where the coal will be kept, and holds the furnace for the third level plus one, oil, hot water heater and one electric (they syphon off each other). It doesn't get below 50-55 in there.

To the right of the porch, 700 s.f. of living space, including the stairway to the second level. The front, main room is the living room. This is where the stove will be kept, corner install, partly facing the stairway to send the heat upstairs. The rest of this level holds kitchen (middle room), dining room (rear), bath (rear,right. This part of the house juts out on the side for the stairwell to the third level.

Once upstairs, the left side of the house, above the garage, holds three bedrooms. The right side holds 1 bedroom (above living room), den (above kitchen), art studio & bathroom (above dining room), and laundry room (above bathroom). At the very top of the stairs is a small hallway (only 3' x 5'). To the left is a bedroom, but to the right is the den (middle room of the house). This has a ceiling fan that we want to put on reverse to suck the air up the stairs.

Here are my questions:

Do you think this stairway will be enough to get the heat upstairs, or do you see me adding in a floor register or two being that the house is long?

All the other rooms on the second level have ceiling fans as well. With the middle one on reverse, should I use the others on low forward, low reverse, or not at all?

We are also trying to guess how much it will cost us in oil to heat the third level that we rent out. When we used only oil to heat the entire house, the third level never got below 60 degrees with the heat grates closed. (We had a tenant move out in December so we closed the grates while remodeling up there). Keeping in mind that the third level is sandwiched between an insulated attic and our second level, can you guesstimate how warm the coal will keep the third floor flooring? I've had a few installers say that since heat rises, and the coal is so warm, it should be the same scenario as when we were heating with oil, if not better. Not sure since I am asking the Pioneer to heat 2000 s.f. and spread it around the house.

I know this will be trial and error, and you can only guess, but I've read most of this forum and you all seem to really know your stuff. Any thoughts would help.

Thanks!
Emily

Welcome Emily. I find it very difficult to conceptualize your layout based on a written description. Any chance of you posting a drawing or 2 showing the layout?
First suggestion I would make is if there's any way to tie into or build a masonry chimney? That's a much better solution with a coal appliance since your power vent would have to run 24/7 through the heating season.

Hello,

I could see about doing a drawing; no time right now.

There is no chance for a chimney. I have the oil-fired furnace hooked up to it right now. The placement of the stove would not be right either. It would be in the middle of the house, facing out, the wrong way, and no where near the stairs.

I don't mind a power vent at all. I'm not getting up 30+ feet in the air to clean the chimney, so if I'm going to have to dish out money, I'll just do it on the electric of the power vent.

-Emily

thepamperedlady wrote:There is no chance for a chimney. I have the oil-fired furnace hooked up to it right now.

Last time I'll mention the chimney Emily but what allot of people do is connect the coal stove into the chimney & power vent the oil burner, since it runs intermittently.

Nuff said.

thepamperedlady wrote:so if I'm going to have to dish out money, I'll just do it on the electric of the power vent.

Why dish out any money at all. Do as Devil suggests, power vent the oil and connect the coal to the chimney, that's the way mine's set up

Hello,

Thanks guys, but the chimney was never the problem. I cannot use my existing chimney for this stove. It is smack dab in the middle of my house, with my cooking stove (electric), fridge, shelving, etc, right in front of it. It would be a terrible spot to put a coal stoker; the heat would never get upstairs, I'd have to remodel my kitchen, etc. Husband would kill me, we just remodeled. Also, furnace facing the wrong way, would have to put too many elbows to get the power vent out of my garage and it would block the way to get to the hot water heaters. Also, property is on a hill; garage side of house is almost all "underground" and it's a stone foundation; which we are not messing with.

Any opinions on my questions I posted?

Thanks!
Emily

thepamperedlady wrote:I cannot use my existing chimney for this stove.

Listen Emily.......We are ordering you to use your chimney for the coal stove!!....JUST KIDDING!!!

Now that we have that out of the way, I'll wait for any diagram you can post to help me see your layout better.

Here goes for the drawing. Not quite sure how this works. It's attached.

-Emily