- Nov 25, 2013
- 57
The thermostats last night was set to 65 for upstairs and down. The living room is where the insert last night peaked at 68 degrees but the room is usually 60 degrees so about 5-6 degrees colder than every other room in the house. It's a good sized room and has 2 floor heat registers. The chimney is 25' high and has a 6" insulated liner. The living room has a large opening to the dining room where there's 1 thermostat. The other side of the living room has a set of stairs that go up to the 2nd floor. The ceiling at the stairs is high and there's a ceiling fan there. At the top of the stairs is the other thermostat for the 2nd floor. The house has gas furnaces in the attic and basement. They kick on in short cycles in the winter. I notice they run more so when the fireplace is burning. Last night was the first time I was able to get the living room warmer than any other room in the house. Neither areas next to the living room got higher than the set temp of 65. The furnace on the 1st floor did not kick on much at all while the fireplace was burning. My second floor is never warmer than my 1st floor other than in the summer. I think I have a severe insulation problem in the living room. If it were same temperature as the rest of the house at 65 then I could have got it to 73-74 degrees in that room and it would have spread to the other rooms and upstairs. I think the the room struggles to retain the heat. I tried air tight recessed lighting, installing a ceiling fan, sealing the fireplace with an insert and nothing has changed. Total sq. footage is 1811, and 1500 with the insulated but unused 3 season porch closed off with doors.Is this still with the furnace kicking on even more for the rest of the house, with thermostat set to 66 ? Or is the stove helping heat the rest of the house, too, so you use the furnace less?
If you are using a ton of wood just to get that room to 74F, with rest of the house being heated by the furnace to 66F, it still sounds like you have a serious problem with too much air entering the stove, causing the rapid wood consumption and forcing the heat up the flue, without it being transferred into the living space... at least in amounts that would correspond to the potential heating value of all that wood.
Loads of two-year old oak, burning at a rate of 5 logs in 2 hours, don't just crumble to ash so quickly in a stove with controlled airflow. It seems there would just have to be a problem with the stove for this to happen.
Regarding the general problem of that room being colder than others, in the past, you have not really described the layout of your house or chimney. If the chimney is exterior to the house, and that room is poorly insulated or leaky, it makes sense that the chimney would be pulling cold air into that room and helping cool it, regardless of any type of stove setup or its performance.