yeah i have a huuuge basement most of my heat is wasted there, the furnace is in the basement, i got a one story house, i got this house cause it has alot of land
pretty basic old installation there with basic old problems of such installations, basement always being too cold in winters, nice in summer tho. Are basement and first floor separated by a door or do they communicate freely? Some people manage to simply heat the first floor where they live most of the time and forget about heating the basement, but it can create major humidity /quality of air troubles.
Again for all the kinds of bungalow types houses built in the 60s, there s no better way than replacing old insulation panels by new ones, replacing old wooden windows in basement by pvc ones, replacing oil systems by electrical ones, and adding one or two wooden stoves in basement and first floor.
Wood stove has to be very carefully placed, preferably in the center of the house to heat the rooms where most of the family will spend most of the time off course. Hot air traveling along top of walls ceiling you have to have no obstacles between rooms, and if you leave doors or sleeping rooms open at night it can also heat them. You can place a second wooden stove in the basement to heat it the same way, depends oof how many rooms you have/want to build there. You have to keep basement dry to prevent humidity so it has to be heated tho. Your main heating system is suposed to heat both first floor and basement with balance, the problem is that wether they re electrical or oil based, they cost a lot especially in cold countries, still electrical beats oil. You cant put two wood stoves on one chimney you have to have a separate chimney for each one. Also there s a danger to having a wooden stove in the basement; most of the time people cant see if something goes wrong / a fire starts when it s down there, living most of the time on the first floor. It's less safe.
The contractor who inspected our house before we decided to buy it told us the best installation is a wooden stove linked to an old chimney, placed in the center of the house, with as few walls as possible, and to have electrical baseboads heaters in all rooms both on first floor and basement under the windows. Thermostat controlling main electrical heating system has to be carefuly placed too. The point of the whole thing is to have the wood stove heating the first floor all winter long for cheap, and main electrical heating system replacing it when you dont put wood in it. The difficulty is to heat the basement correctly, with independant electrical baseboard heaters that are not linked to the thermostat and that you will turn on/off only when you re in the room. Basically it's about keeping the whole first floor warm all winter long, and the rooms you stay in the basement warm using electrical baseboard units, while NOT heating the rooms where you dont spend much time. Still, you have to keep the whole basement warm enough even if colder than first floor and heated rooms so humidity doenst start to create troubles. A wood stove placed on a floor (first floor or basement) where there are many walls / rooms is pointless, it will only overheat the room it's in.
there are many pdf on the internet about all of this. A house needs a good hat , a good vest and a good pair of boots against weather.
