Very Cold Basement

Spence,

35' x 15'  with a drop ceiling

Hot Coco, made with Belgian Chocolate • In the "Man Cave".

Spence, Bob has it right. I spent 30 years in pneumatic temp controls. The air must flow throughout the entire house including the basement.

Thank you everyone for all your suggestions. I've got a lot to think about.

Spence, 

There is so much to think about, you won't get it installed until summer.  Ready for 2015-16 winter.

run your furnace fan.  the point of it is to circulate the air around your house.  that's what they told me to do when you could hang meat in the basement and the upstairs couldn't keep cool.

A couple of flaming Sambuca shots and the problem is solved.

 

since you heat your house with the pellet stove, why not use the hot air furnace for the basement only.  close all the registers in the rest of the house and open or install them in the basement. add a thermostat in the basement. should be powerful enough to heat it up just fine. if not the Sambucca works nicely.

Bob Severin,

I have an air HVAC system, and I often thought about running the blower continuously, but I have a concern about the life of the blower. In your experience, what is the life span of the blower if I run it continually?

Wow it would be hard to enjoy yourself in those temps! I don't know that system but it looks to be designed for small areas not the big space you have.

 Don't know the details of your existing HVAC or finish level of your basement. But we have a separate furnace and cold air returns for the lower level. Our basement is a walk out with heavy southern exposure, heavily insulated even in the ceilings and 2000 ft. Funny thing is that even in the coldest winter days in Minnesota it has never dropped below 60 degrees. The furnace is set at 55 degrees in the winter and never comes on. 

My house started out as all electric baseboard heat and was retrofitted with an attic mounted heat pump that only heats the living area upstairs.  Since it is an older model it doesn't do well when its under 20 degrees F outside, currently its about 9.  The back-up for that is basically a toaster ( electric resistance coil that has air blown over it) that Co$t$ a fortune to operate.  We have looked into the mini-splits and found some encouraging info, supposedly many of them work well down to 5 degrees F, however it is a big investment.  The living space of the basement, including the trains, is currently heated by electric baseboards, making it dry, uncomfortable and costly. 

 

This thread has been really helpful.  I'd love to circulate the air from upstairs however there is no ductwork to the downstairs space.  A big sliding glass door with an aluminum track on the bottom doesn't help either.

 

 

in my experience the blower motor will outlast the rest of the furnace. mine has been running since 1996 and I still have the blower motor from the unit I replaced which was in place in 1962, now an exhaust/dust collector fan in my shop.  the new unit (1996) automatically changes to a lower fan speed when not actually making heat of cold. the old unit ran full speed all the time. safe to say the motors will outlast us.

Don't ask me how I missed Bobs first post but I did  I could have just replied "ditto".