offsetting some pellet use by adding wood stove in basement?

[nanama72]

We have a pellet stove which we use to heat our house and don't use any oil except for hot water. We have an open floor plan and keep it pretty much on high (level 5) when we're home and level 4 at night or when we're not home. We are using about 6-7 tons this year.

I have heard that if you insulate your basement and put a wood stove in there, you can use less than one cord of wood and then blow the warm air through the furnace to heat up the rest of the house.

Is this realistic? If we paid to insulate our basement walls, +/- the floor, would we possibly be able to use one cord of wood and a less pellets and have the house actually be warmer? The question is, would it be worth it?

 

[LI-Mini-Owner]

So it sounds like you want to move warm air from the basement through the furnace duct work to the rest of the house. You must have a furnace return duct in the main part of your house. I would think that would need to be closed off, and an intake added in the basement. I think you'll also need to keep the basement door open so that air pumped upstairs via the furnace blower would have a return path.

It's not looking too viable to me, but I'd be curious what others will say.


Carl