Heating the Victoria's Cottage with wood stove?

[Hydroman]

I am considering the Victoria's Cottage. How difficult will it be to heat the add-on bedroom wing with a wood stove in the living room kitchen area, particularly when the bedroom door is closed? By the way this will be an off the grid location.

[glenn kangiser]

Vents top and bottom of the wall could be one way to do it. 

Floor register under stove ducted to the far side of the room floor and a high wall register could be another way to do it.  You would be pulling cold air out by heating it and making it rise.  We did this on a stove that was sealed at the base  to the duct and convection pulled the air through as it heated around the stove and rose up.  This stove was designed to do that though.

[John Raabe]

If you do a good job on the insulation the temperature difference will not be too great even without venting options. We have one such room in our house (one that is about the same distance from the stove). If we leave the door open the room is only a few degrees cooler than the main room. If the door is closed it might get as much as 10º cooler if it is really cold outside.

[MountainDon]

Our 832 sq ft home back home was heated mainly with a centrally located VC Vigilant wood stove. The house was not very well insulated when purchased. It was built in the 50's; we bought it in the mid 70's. The first winter with the wood burner newly installed (we remodeled and took out the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room area, put the stove in the middle.) the two bedrooms were noticably cold.

The next summer we pulled off the old stucco and blew cellulose into the wall cavities. That was followed with an inch of blue foam insulation. Along with that new triple pane casement windows were installed. Then new stucco.

The difference was amazing. We used less wood and the two bedrooms were very much warmer. In fact I had to install an air/heat exchanger in the basement to get combustion air for the stove. With a fire going in the wood burner the easiest flow of air to the stove was down the chimney for the gas fired boiler for the hydronic boiler the house had been built with. We kept it set to go if we were absent and the wood fire burned low.

So yeah... build tight and insulate well and the place should be comfortable everywhere. If the bedrooms are a little cooler that works for us for sleeping. But that room would get more cool with the door shut. You might need a low volume air movement system.

[CREATIVE1]

I'm about to build an expanded Victoria (two feet deeper including the wing, one foot taller, kitchen wing 1 foot wider)with a woodstove in the middle of the house.  I moved the steps to the kitchen wing.  The stove is in front of the bathroom, and the bathroom door is in an angled wall in the wing.  We will use the wing as a den, so there is a slightly larger arch than a standard door. 

I also went with radiant convection cove heaters, which cost about $1,600 for ten units from a company in Nebraska, much cheaper than anywhere else.  They are all separately controlled, so I plan to use them to take care of any cold spots.  They heat objects, not the air.

I also plan to use registers, transoms, and interior windows.  I'm also going with a stone wall behind the woodstove to the ceiling for radiant heat.  Can't tell you how it will work, but hopefully we've planned well for a climate that goes into the 20's.

[Hydroman]

Thanks for your input.

I think the best solution might be to put the wood stove next to the stairs. I will probably go with the code stairs and add 2 feet to the length of the house. That would the the wood stove almost in the middle of the house and right near the doorway to the bedroom add-on while still providing the ambiance to the living room. I expect it may draw more heat into the upstairs loft/bedroom areas too.

Thoughts?

[John_C]

My house is basically a 24 x 32 2-story farmhouse with an added utility room on one end downstairs, a total of almost 1700 sq ft.  The wood burning stove sits at one end of the downstairs great room and the stairs are along the far wall. The stove is a Consolidated Dutchwest that Has given superb service for 21 winters.   It heats the entire house much more evenly and economically than I had ever imagined.

I have electric heaters in all the rooms as well, each heater controlled by it's own thermostat.  The only ones that see any use are the ones in the upstairs bathrooms.  Both I and my daughter like it toasty in there from time to time.  In the master bath I have a thermostat and a 1-hour timer, either of which will control the 500w heater.  I never use the thermostat.  I turn the timer on for 45 min or so a few minutes before I want to take a long shower or bath and the room is comfy for the duration.  I don't even have to remember to turn it down/off.

The bedrooms have 1500w forced air heaters.  They are way overkill.  If I were doing it over I'd put a 750w baseboard heater in each room instead.  Cheaper to install and quiet. They get used so seldom the cost of operation just isn't an issue.

I am in N GA, we have about 3300 deg days  per year.  My house very well insulated for it's time, but I would do much better if I were building today.  Hindsight being what it is I would also try to take advantage of some solar gain.  The point being that as efficient as my house is I could improve it quite a bit.

IMO if you locate the stove next to the stairs the heat will go upstairs very quickly and the far corners of the downstairs will stay very cold.  Better to locate the stove as far from the stairs as possible.  The natural movement of air will work in your favor.  A ceiling fan or two turning very slowly would be all that would be needed.  The BR wing will get warmer than you think but will likely need some help if you want it as warm as the great room.

Almost all of my neighbors have some sort of wood burning stove.  Most are located in the great room under a cathedral ceiling. Invariably the upstairs gets too warm and the downstairs bedrooms get very little warm air.  I've thought that a bit of duct work from high up near the peak and routed to the coldest corners of the house would be the answer. There are very small in-line duct fans that would move the air. They are inexpensive and use very little power.