Heating a Basement

[91chevywt]

I was looking for a couple suggestions on heating my basement. I do a lot of hanging out down there and it's pretty cold this season. Around 55 degrees. My home uses electric heat, and I was hoping to do something alternative to that, mainly because just heating the main parts of the home are expensive enough. I wouldn't mind plumbing a propane line from outside down there to a stand-alone heater and being fueled by one of the grill-sized tanks, but I don't even know what kind of heater to use from that point. Or maybe it would be better to use those camping-size propane tanks. I did have one little propane heater before, and I think it was giving off carbon monoxide...because after being around it a little while we were feeling dizzy and tired...so CO was the first thing we thought.

Just to give an idea of the basement, it is pretty large and open. There is carpet down there, and drywall. Also, our chimney is in the middle of the basement, so installing a wood stove would be a possibility, but a pretty expensive possibility. Plus the time involved in splitting wood, which I don't have. I was considering a pellet stove too..but they seem pretty pricey as well.

So, any suggestions?

[WildBillyT]

No burners in the house. CO is a bad thing. Not to mention it's a basement, so the CO will settle down there.

I work out in my one car garage that is not heated. I have a Kenwood electric radiator that works well and is not that expensive to run. It's oil filled so it's more efficient than a blower style.

[Blackbirdws6]

I would suggest getting rid of the electric heat but that won't be cheap or necessarily easy. Do you have any gas service at the house or entirely electric?

Sometimes the gas utility will run a gas line to the house for free since they want your business. You could install a small gas furnace and be done. Make sure the insulation is in good order or you have some otherwise its going to be a losing battle in the winter with whatever you do.

[//<86TA>\\]

it would still involve tapping into the chimney, which may or may not require a separate flue liner, but maybe consider a pellet stove? no splitting wood, good "cheap" heat

[91chevywt]

Unfortunately we only have baseboard electric heaters in the home...no gas. We don't have gas service available on our street either. Our neighbors seem to either have propane heat or oil heat. I suppose the electric is always an option. I have had experience with the oil-filled electric heaters, but due to the size of the area they don't do much. It takes 2-3 hours to make a slightly noticable difference with 2 of them running, plus if you run them on high they pop the circuit breaker because of the current they draw. I suppose I'd just have to shop around for the right heater to do the job.

Also, as far as size, the basement is as large as the whole house, which is a 3 bedroom rancher, so it's pretty long. Volume wise, it is about 2.5 times the size of our 2 car garage..so it's big.

http://www.heatershop.com/indoor_gas_space_heaters.html
I did just find these, which there are a couple propane options. I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with something like this

[79T/A]

If you spend a lot of time down there, I think it would be worth the initial expense for a pellet stove. Don't need a really big stove to put out a lot of heat. I've talked to people who heat their entire houses with them.

[S.J.SLEEPER]

2 oil filled heaters, lot more effecient than electric heaters, & if you run both of them all the time @ a low or mid setting, HEAT rises!!! so therefore you probably would be cutting back on usage of electric heat upstairs.

[Camaro67_rcl]

Look into a mini-slpit heatpump for down there http://www.fujitsugeneral.com/wallmounted.htm

[92REDBIRD]

I agree a mini-split would work well. But they are not cheap.