The No heat basement experiment
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My basement never gets below 55 degrees. Most years now , sinse I insulated the inside walls it doesn't get below 58. I have 2" styrofoam outside and R11 inside .
I insulated the crawlspace in 2006. We noticed the warmer floors right away the next winter. That meant less heating to feel comfortable.
It heats up fast once i get there and fire up the wood stove. Basement will go to 70 in less than an hour. I use a barrel stove in the basement and an englander NC30
on the first floor.Basement gets a lot warmer than 1st floor a lot quicker too. Home was completely gutted so most places i can see the backside of the exterior sheathing boards and some daylight. Now in the process of sealing off the 2nd floor stairwell to keep heat confined to the first floor.
jdp1152
Minister of Fire
I have about 50% of my basement subterranean.....it never even flirts with less than 40 down there with no insulation. I have 5 small basement windows, one entry door, and two garage doors (now insulated garage doors as of this summer) that lead to an entry door. Only issue I have is that when I have the inserts running in the main living space, the geothermal doesn't run so the air in the ducts gets cooler and when they inevitably let the temp drop in the main living space, it shoots out a burst of cold air which decreases efficiency of the system. I only let the electric back up activate when it's around zero or below outside since the heat pump will catch up eventually and experience tells me it's cheaper than the back up. I did do some air sealing from garage to basement and some insulation/soffit work around the exposed ducts in the garage, but haven't had that in place long enough to gauge efficacy during the winter. I would like to eventually insulate down there (aside from the rim joist, which I have spray foamed), but until I know what I actually want to do with it (if anything), I'm at a bit of a stand still.
That sounds like a lot of effort and expense for just a 3 degree improvement. Looks like the law of diminishing returns applies here. Iv been able to achieve great improvements with just air sealing alone. Im afraid future improvements will be both much more costly and less effective.
I have a block wall basement, mostly underground, that would get to almost freezing (ice on insides of windows) even with a propane furnace down there running five days/week (downside of sealing ducts well). I airsealed, installed a proper door at the foot of the bilco steps, insulated inside walls with 1" foam, and last year it never went below 55F even before insulation was complete. Even now, there's no way I'd leave home for a week in Winter without turning off the water.
If you do go with foam interior, beware of codes requiring a fire-proof covering. I simply glued drywall on top of the foam, with the right glue the drywall ripped before the glue, way stronger than screws.
TE
If you do go with foam interior, beware of codes requiring a fire-proof covering. I simply glued drywall on top of the foam, with the right glue the drywall ripped before the glue, way stronger than screws.
TE
CaptSpiff
Minister of Fire
I did the same thing with good results in one area where i needed more space around a toilet for code compliance.
I used Loctite PL300 Foamboard glue.
The no heat part is overnight and weekends. Barrel stove goes out quickly after you stop filling it. Latent heat dissipates within a few hours. At this point there is still zero insulation anywhere in the house and no drywall yet. I have a 220 gallon rain catchment system in the basement which froze last year and ruined the pump. This year so far with air sealing
it has stayed above 38 with overnight outside temps in the teens and daytime temps in the 20s. We will see what happens once it gets colder.
My 220 Gallon rain catchment system is already full after only being installed about 2 weeks. It covers about a third of the roof surface. Were in a rain deficit still, but im surprised it filled so fast.
With the "wrong" glue, the foam would give way behind the glue, although even that took far more force than pulling out a drywall screw, but with foamboard glue, it didn't. I tried a few small test pieces as I was gluing and the drywall tore first, and it took a lot of force.
TE
Update: I have the floors torn out above and now the cold just drops down into the basement and its freezing in there once again.
Wisneaky
Minister of Fire
Basement temps have a lot to do with where you live. Here in Wisconsin there is 4-6 feet of frost in the ground and temps drop below zero a lot of days. Basements here get very cold and without some sort of heat in them pipes will freeze and burst. Some towns around here ask that you keep a faucet on so the water lines in the ground don't freeze also. Also want to add I've seen people spray foam the basement walls and that keeps it very warm.
Seasoned oak, you have to have an awful lot of air coming in. My 2200 sq ft basement never got below 52 degrees. You are loosing a lot of heat. I have a new home. The floor truss cavities are closed cesll foam.. The outside has 2" foam and the inside is insulated with some 2" foam and fiberglass batts . It is framed and it has 1/4" plywood over it. . The only bit of heat is from the water heater. It might get some from the 1000 ft of staple up pex but before the pex it never got below 50 degrees anyway.You could raise your temps 10 degrees if you insulate.
The first and second floor of this rehab is still gutted and yes there is a lot of air coming in. Before i tore out the floors to replace all floor joists and subflooring iwas maintaining about 40 Degrees with no heat. Without some of the floors complete i cant stay above freezing so i have heat tapes on the whole house sewer line trap and another snaking through my rain water collection barrels. so far so good.
Wisneaky
Minister of Fire
With that 2 inches of foam on each side plus the batts your sitting on about r30 worth of insulation. Sounds like the op has no insulation so he isn't going to be able to keep it above freezing without heat.
I have been keeping it at 40 with no insulation except now that i have the floor torn out above. The cold drops right down and overwhelms the 40 degree floor. As soon as i can get the new floor in above ill be back above freezing. should take about 2-3 days
I bet you will be fine. When my house burned down I was concerned about my water freezing in the drain tiles. They never froze in the crock sump neither, not even a little bit. The coldest the basement got was 23* and it was a home with a hole in the roof but not completley open. You should be ok against frozen sump water but I don't know about the water pipes.
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