I am writing several blog entries, documenting my experience with the Hitzer coal burning stove. The following is the third entry. Oh and by the way, names have been changed (sort of) to protect the innocent. I recommend starting at the begining with The Coal Chronicles - Book I and The Coal Chronicles Book II
Problem: The Hitzer is in the basement, the family lives in the floors above.
The heat isn’t going to do much good trapped in the basement. As readers might remember, our house came complete with electric baseboard heaters. These heaters are attached to the wall and wired to the 240 volt electric. There is no duct work in the house, making circulation of heated air a bit of a challenge.
The challenge is to move the heat into the upper floors of the house and return the cold air to the basement.
The house is a rather unique house, a split level overrun with stairs. This was a novelty to us, coming from the flatlands of Michigan’s Saginaw Valley. The novelty has worn off now, since you have to go either up or down in most cases simply to use the bathroom. But, I digress.
The house has a very large patio door on the northeast side, or as I have heard it termed around here, a door wall. To provide heat in the area of the door wall there are two unique heaters in the floor. They are quite large and deep. I surmised that they were deep enough to go through to the basement, but could not verify this due to the finished ceiling.
I had taken the grates off the heaters several times to retrieve lost toys and other droppings to the child’s “wishing wells.” I carefully removed the ceiling tile in the basement where I thought the heaters would be located. Sure enough, there was the bottom of the heater enclosure. The heaters are simply oil-filled elements in a steel enclosure, nothing to them. I have worked with high voltage electricity in a past life, so working on 240 volts does not bother me. I removed the wiring and with a bit of effort the enclosure came out of the hole. I was delighted to see that the resulting space was nicely framed with floor joists. After a bit of trim work in the basement ceiling I was golden.
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