What would YOU do? Historic brick home heating questions

[morlock]

First a little background and then I'd love to have any suggestions that you guys may have on what you personally would do.

My wife and I purchased a historic house in central missouri that we're restoring. The structure is 2 story with a layout much like a classic four-square. Exterior AND interior walls are mult-wythe brick and each bedroom has its own fireplace or chimney. The average room size is about 18x18 square. Unfortunately all but two of the rooms are going to have to be gutted and I will be furring out the walls and putting in some insulation in the cavities and insulating the attic as well. That part I believe I have pretty well sorted out plan wise. There is almost no room for ducting...

The question... how to heat this puppy.

One of my main requirements is the ability to heat during long power outages. I guess, consider I'd like to pretend I'm off grid and not rely on line power. I have a large wooded acreage behind the house, so I'd like to heat with wood as much as possible.
My other requirement ... I'd love it to match the historic look of the home. The few mantles I have are a beautiful federal style; I think I'd cry if I had to look at some modern looking thing in or near them.


Right now the way I see my options are...

Small inserts and stoves in each bedroom.
-could be an enormous cost

Wood gassifier boiler and radiant on the top floor with radiators downstairs (no crawlspace)
-more difficult and harder to power "off grid"


What else am I missing?

 

[Chettt]

There may be a law against putting a stove in a bedroom, could you put one stove on the lower level and one out in the hall of the upper?

 

[begreen]

I'd start out with a decent sized insert or freestanding stove downstairs. Be sure to have those chimneys cleaned, inspected. Most likely they will need liners if they are older. Depending on the overall sq ftg a smaller stove in the kitchen as a supplement is often nice. Or even a wood cookstove. Between the two they should heat the place pretty well.

 

[morlock]

Chettt,
I hadn't considered that... Excellent point. No real place to put one centrally upstairs though.

BeGreen,
I really like your idea here. Most of the "living" space is upstairs and there isn't much airflow in the house. Would a good stove heat the space above well enough?
And yes, I wouldn't dream of using these chimneys without some work.

 

[Applejacks]

Have some foam blown in the wall cavities. It's expensive but worth every penny in the long run.

 

[morlock]

AJ,
Unfortunately, no cavities at present Plaster over brick. But, yes I'll be furring them out and open cell foaming as much as I can. Old soft brick can't really tolerate closed cell foam; it has to breathe.

 

[elmoleaf]

Check with your local building inspector. It seems that Missouri does not have a state building code.
Here's what the International Mechanical Code states:

303.3 Prohibited locations. Appliances shall not be located in sleeping rooms, bathrooms, toilet rooms, storage closets or surgical rooms, or in a space that opens only into such rooms or spaces, except where the installation complies with one of the following:

1. The appliance is a direct-vent appliance installed in accordance with the conditions of the listing and the manufacturer's instructions.
2. Vented room heaters, wall furnaces, vented decorative appliances, vented gas fireplaces, vented gas fireplace heaters and decorative appliances for installation in vented solid fuel-burning fireplaces are installed in rooms that meet the required volume criteria of Section 304.5.
3. A single wall-mounted unvented room heater is installed in a bathroom and such unvented room heater is equipped as specified in Section 621.6 and has an input rating not greater than 6,000 Btu/h (1.76 kW). The bathroom shall meet the required volume criteria of Section 304.5.
4. A single wall-mounted unvented room heater is installed in a bedroom and such unvented room heater is equipped as specified in Section 621.6 and has an input rating not greater than 10,000 Btu/h (2.93 kW). The bedroom shall meet the required volume criteria of Section 304.5.
5. The appliance is installed in a room or space that opens only into a bedroom or bathroom, and such room or space is used for no other purpose and is provided with a solid weather-stripped door equipped with an approved self-closing device. All combustion air shall be taken directly from the outdoors in accordance with Section 304.6.

Also keep in mind the need for a liner in the chimney. If a metal liner won't fit, you may need to investigate a poured liner system. Your remodeling may also trigger the need for hardwired smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors....these are a good idea in any event.

 

[HollowHill]

As a fellow old house owner, I know what you mean about putting something too modern looking in an old home. It can be jarring. On the other hand, this is one instance when an antique is not a good idea. You want something safe, clean-burning and efficient. I have a Federal home and went with a Woodstock Progress. If you do a search on this website for Progress, you'll find a thread on my installation (around 12/8). It might give you an idea of how it looks in a Federal home (if you can't find it, let me know and I'll repost). I think all of Woodstock's stoves have a classic look to them and blend in well with an old house. I think Jotul also has some nice, classic stoves. I'm sure there are others. Good luck in your search.

 

[Wood Duck]

Another problem with a small stove in each bedroom would be the huge pain in the butt trying to keep many small stoves burning. I really like burning wood but still it gets to the point where I would like the stove to require less attention, and I have only one stove. I would not want to maintain 2 or 4 or 6 fires for very long.

I like the idea of one big stove and maybe a smaller one in the kitchen.

 

[Flamestead]

I'm in much the same situation - 40'x44' 2-story federal, fireplaces in each room. Wood siding with blown-in insulation, so better, but a little further north, too. We've replaced most of the windows, and next is bringing the attic up to R60. I don't want to cover the old plaster walls, but one room had the interior wall replaced with paneling - that was removed and furred out to a 6" depth (the rest of the walls are closer to a 3" cavity). Ideally I would have added a few inches of insulation on the outside walls, but had to replace siding on a tight budget.

Someone put in forced hot air heating years ago, supplied from the basement to the first floor, and put floor vents in some rooms on the second floor. We generally keep the vents closed. We do have a ceiling fan above the stairs, stirring the air there a bit. Some rooms are closed off in the dead of the winter and get a bit cool. The kids like to keep their doors closed (??) - I don't try to argue.

I looked long and hard at a wood gasification boiler and heat storage + DHW, housed in a detached garage with adjoining woodshed, coming to thin wall-mount radiators, each with its own temp control. I still dream.

Reality is one wood stove in the kitchen, running 24-7 from October through April, and last year we supplemented that with about 200 gallons of fuel oil in the furnace. Near-term improvement is a larger, modern stove in the kitchen (Progress Hybrid, real soon now). Longer term is a second wood burner on the first floor on the opposite corner of the house (I read every VC Montpelier posting I see here). I am told to expect considerable improvement from the attic insulation upgrade - insulation recommendations appear to be considerably more than they were 20 years ago, so make sure you are getting a modern recommendation for your local.

I love burning wood, but have come to be an advocate of cutting air infiltration and major insulation as the first line of action.

{edited for spelling}

 

[wkpoor]

I have a bubby with a 150+ yr old home vary large. Many rooms fairly isolated from each other. he heats its extremely warm with radiators in each room and a wood boiler in the basement. Does a real nice job. Boiler was about 2500.00 by itself. He lined the existing chimney and rads were already there. Pretty cheap overall system that does a great job on a big old house with original windows and no insulation added.

 

[begreen]

Chettt,
I hadn't considered that... Excellent point. No real place to put one centrally upstairs though.

BeGreen,
I really like your idea here. Most of the "living" space is upstairs and there isn't much airflow in the house. Would a good stove heat the space above well enough?
And yes, I wouldn't dream of using these chimneys without some work.

That will depend on the proximity of the room to the stairwell, the size of the stairwell and the size of the room opening to this stairwell area. But it seems to work ok for a lot of folks. A regular table fan can sometimes make a big difference it the heat needs persuasion out of the room.

PS: Do you call the little ones eloi?

 

[morlock]

Heh. No little ones yet. My wife and are hoping for #1 soon.

I work in a dark cold data center next door to the land of beautiful sales and marketing people... hence the name

 

[morlock]

Hollowhill,
I do like the look of that stove. Great looking interior. I hope those moving guys were gentle.
I'm off to read on the progress now

As a fellow old house owner, I know what you mean about putting something too modern looking in an old home. It can be jarring. On the other hand, this is one instance when an antique is not a good idea. You want something safe, clean-burning and efficient. I have a Federal home and went with a Woodstock Progress. If you do a search on this website for Progress, you'll find a thread on my installation (around 12/8). It might give you an idea of how it looks in a Federal home (if you can't find it, let me know and I'll repost). I think all of Woodstock's stoves have a classic look to them and blend in well with an old house. I think Jotul also has some nice, classic stoves. I'm sure there are others. Good luck in your search.

 

[begreen]

We need some particulars to give better advice. Can you post a floorplan or describe the layout in a bit more detail? What's the size of the fireplace adjacent to the stairwell? Total sq ftg of the house?

 

[morlock]

BeGreen,
Here's a 5 min rough drawing. its not clear, but the area around the cellar is below grade. Long red is a fireplace with mantle. Small red boxes are a small chimneys. 1st floor is obviously on top

 

[begreen]

That's good enough. Based on the drawing I would focus on the dining room fireplace for the insert. With the Living Room directly overhead, it looks like that area would experience a nice gain in warmth.

 

[clemsonfor]

No matter how small the rooms i dont know if you would want a stove in a bedroom, it will get quite hot at certain times.

 

[HollowHill]

BeGreen,
Here's a 5 min rough drawing. its not clear, but the area around the cellar is below grade. Long red is a fireplace with mantle. Small red boxes are a small chimneys. 1st floor is obviously on top

This is similar to my layout. The door openings are not large, but my center hall and stairway are open (stair not enclosed) and wide. There is no problem getting the heat upstairs from my living room (where your dining room is). The other rooms downstairs are more of a challenge for moving the heat into, but with a small fan placed in the doorway of your bed/den blowing toward your dining room, I do get circulation going to these areas. Hope this helps.

 

[pyper]

In an old house, if you don't replace all the upstairs windows (and seal all the other openings), you'll probably find that the 2nd floor works like a chimney and draws heat up. The house my mom grew up in was uninsulated wood frame in NE Pennsylvania and the gravity heat really only had ducts to the downstairs. The upstairs would get pretty cold, but not nearly as cold as outside. With brick and insulation you'll do a lot better.

You might consider direct vent gas inserts upstairs. Some of them are pretty small and look really nice, and you can run them with a thermostat.

 

[Jags]

I have no clear solution, but I think I would be looking at a multi unit approach. Something like BG was getting at with the stove placement and possibly a gasser located here or there to level the heat requirements. Somewhat of a "primary" heat source with "secondary" options.

I think "even" heating of your home is going to be the largest hurdle.

I would also be heavily considering a boiler running to radiators or baseboards.

 

[eclecticcottage]

You might consider direct vent gas inserts upstairs. Some of them are pretty small and look really nice, and you can run them with a thermostat.

+1

In our old house, we have a DV stove in our bedroom. Great ambiance, no problems with installing a solid fuel appliance in a sleeping area. It's on a thermostat so no problems with heating us out. I imagine you could find an insert that would work with your original mantle and keep the feel. Our DV stoves at our old house (one in the bedroom, one in the livingroom) worked with no need for electric, except the fan on the one downstairs which was optional, so power outages were no problem.

 

[fredarm]

Yeah, I'm thinking wood downstairs, gas upstairs. Who wants to haul wood upstairs?

 

[morlock]

Trying to stay away from gas if possible. Anyone have any experience with between floor blowers/registers? I know there are some that provide a fire break.

 

[begreen]

There are fusible link dampers for sale by Atlanta Supply. I'd hold off installing them until a need is clearly demonstrated. Try the single, large insert in the dining room first.