home heating question

[fukkinrizzo]

I have a two story house with basement. I was thinking the best way to heat would be to put a fireplace insert in. I was also thinking about a wood stove in the basement and maybe using the fan from the furnace to warm the rest of the house.

I am looking for some advice from real life experiences on which way to go.

thanks in advance

[84Chevy]

an add-on wood furnace

[Bo Duke]

an add-on wood furnace

Yeah, you could get a Forced Air Wood burning furnace.....

[dossows]

Heating with wood is a lot of work [ cut, split,load,clean ashes,middle of the night reload and the added dusting for the wife to clean]. Wood is only good for the room it's in. It's hard to keep even temp. to hot to cold.

Outdoor wood stoves are great, there a little costly to buy, but they can pay for there self sometimes in the first year.
They can also heat your domestic hot water at the same time, saving more gas.
You can buy them to hold 3' to 5' logs and one load can heat house and hot water for 8 to 12 hours. And all mess is outside!

Wood burning if you don't stay with it can cost more in gas, if house gets to cold your furnace will work double trying to heat it back up.

Hope this helps.

[THAT MUDFIT GUY]

my brother has a woodsrove in the basement that runs through the fan on his furnace and they use it as a supplemental heat source  it keeps the floors warm and the furnace doesnt run as much the outside burner is a great way to go if you have the cash for it but if not woodstove in the main part of the house is also a good alternative but is alot of work  but if you have to buy your wood as opposed to cutting your own it can get costly also  i do gas work for consumers energy and i reccomend insulating and winterproofing your home to see if that makes a change in heat usage i love wood stoves personally but the work is a pain in the arse  it really is a personal preference but winterproofing is a good start then kinda go from there     this is just my oppinion but i hope it was helpful

http://wethersfieldct.com/marshal/supplemental_heat.html

[Hammerlane]

Have a woodstove in the dining room (central room in the house) I love it.. cutting splitting etc. is part of it, don't let a little work scare you..its good exercise, if you do a little at a time all year long it's not that bad..

I put up about 8-10 cord of wood a year, an hour or 2 a night, 1 -2 nights a week thruout the year..

[extricator1]

what hammerlane said 

[TBigLug]

I'm with Hamerlane. Swinging an axe will keep you warm on the chilly mornings. Besides, notheing smells better than a wood stove heated house.

[HeatherLuvsMud]

Have a woodstove in the dining room (central room in the house) I love it.. cutting splitting etc. is part of it, don't let a little work scare you..its good exercise, if you do a little at a time all year long it's not that bad..

I put up about 8-10 cord of wood a year, an hour or 2 a night, 1 -2 nights a week thruout the year..

I'm with Hammerlane too. We have a woodstove in our house and I love going out to cut wood. I leave the splitting to Betterbeaters (my legs are better attached   ) but I don't mind any part of the cutting, splitting, loading, stacking....it's all good exercise. And the heat is GREAT!

[MR. Horsepower]

I use wood got a wood burner from TSC in door style sits in my little garage pumped it thought the wall in to the breeze way for now blow in to the house with fans we are going to pump it in to the crawl space pretty soon thats what my pops does and it works great as long as ya got good wood supply or even if you run it 2weeks a month in stead of 4 it helps not shur about puttijng the one I got in the basement though I got roughly $1300 with pipes and stuff into it  payed for it with one winter 

[catfish]

we run a forced air wood burn to supplumint are gas furnice rilly cuts down on the cost as far as work goes int ant to bad  but you need a good back or a log splitter

[Gearz]

Have a two story with basement. Had a fire place was doing the wood thing. Now have the insert wood pellet burner. The heat from this is heating the hole house so far. The old open wood fire place would let the heat all go out chimney. It never put as much heat out as the pellet burner does.

[mudweiser]

I have an outdoor woodstove and I love it. My natural gas use went down to zero dollars for the winter. The only time I use Natural gas is in the summer for my hot water heater. They are alot of work but I have 3 boys that help me.

[bmwallace_88]

i have a forced air wood burner in the basement, heats my 1300 sq ft house without a problem, its all really about do you want to work hard and save money, or slack off and pay for it in gas, i went with the wood burner it was roughly 1000 for a used unit and duct, not to bad in my opinion