Winterization/Heating between floors of a cabin
AlaskanAl
| Posted in General Questions on
Hi –
I have a 2.5 story cabin (daylight basement, main floor +loft – tall ceilings, about 1,200 sf total) in remote Alaska where it gets very very cold in the winter, about -10 degrees average is common for a Nov-March, sometimes colder.
This will be my second winter with this cabin and looking for a more cost-effective way to manage in the winter. Right now, my main heating system is a large toyostove in the basement, and supplemental electric baseboard heaters on the main floor. I leave the toyo turned on to about 65 and the door to the upstairs open so heat can transfer up, and leave the electric baseboard at about 60. I use the house about 2 weekends a month in the winter so it’s a huge bummer to pay the fuel oil and electric bills to keep it heated while I’m not there (about $500/month in the winter, will be more with year with gas prices).
I am having a wood stove installed in a couple of weeks to help heat the home while I’m there on the weekends but what I would like to do is drain all my water lines for the winter and completely shut off the upstairs heat and let it freeze on the main floor, close the door between the basement and the upstairs and leave the Toyo turned out to 50. Then just use the wood stove to heat the upstairs while I’m there.
I am hoping this would keep the toyo from burning on full blast if closing the door confines the heat to just the basement and it’s not trying to heat the whole house anymore. But my fear is that the second floor will get so cold the cold floor will transfer/suck more heat out of the basement than if I just kept the electric baseboard turned on and the second floor heated. There is no insulation or sheetrock in the basement ceiling between the floors, just exposed joists and the flooring above.
What do you think?
Thank you for your advice!
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Replies
If there is negligible insulation between the basement and the rest of the house the heat loss is going to be negligibly lower if you don't heat the upstairs.
If you're going to drain the upstairs pipes why not drain the entire house and turn the heat off? I have a seasonal house in New England and when I 'm not there in the winter I turn off the heat and drain the pipes. I've set up the plumbing to streamline the process as much as I can, it takes me about an hour to do four full bathrooms, a kitchen and a laundry room. I use a pump to pull as much water as I can out and then compressed air to blow out the rest.
I've been doing it a couple times a year for 17 years without issues. Early on I told myself that if any fixtures couldn't handle the compressed air or freezing I would get rid of them. I replaced one kitchen sink faucet and that's it