Heating cottage with basement throughout winter

[stoney]

I have a couple of inquiries pertaining to cottages and winters that some here may be able to share their first hand experiences or thoughts on.
Assuming cottage has been winterized otherwise. 
 

1) Does anyone have a four season cottage with a basement foundation and do you keep heat on low in basement all the time while not there?

 

2) What are people’s thoughts on the above scenario regarding heating your cottage with basement foundation - will     or can a lack of heat below grade cause foundation or floor issues during cold winter months

 

 Thank you 

[Steve F6]

What kinda furnace?

[skidooboy]

we have a finished basement but, no doors to completely close the upstairs from the downstairs but, we dont "winterize" the house, water, pipes. we set the stat for 55 degrees F (lowest our stat will allow), when we are not there, and 74 when we are there. we have an ap for the trane system to be able to monitor the temps, and turn on heat, ac, and change temps at will.

 

usually the morning we are to be traveling to the house, I start upping the temp 1-2 degrees an hour, to raise the temp slowly. by the time we arrive in the evening, the house is warm, and stable.

 

our system is a forced air propane unit, the stat is upstairs but, the ducting heats both levels. now, it is cooler downstairs but, nowhere near freezing. if we have guests staying downstairs, I have an aux heat unit (ceramic hydro powered), that will keep the temp the same as upstairs.  Ski

[signfan]

All depends on how well the foundation and floor were built.  Provided they are drained properly and are built on a material that the frost won't move (Ie. washed stone) you can let them freeze.  Like anything there is a risk to doing so.  If you have water present in the earth you could have issues which won't be fun.  I know of lots of places (including several of our families cottages) that are left to freeze and have been for years with no issues.  Now the water system is another story.  You have a cpl options.

 

1. Maintain heat everywhere you have water

2. Have everything drain to a central room

3. Drain the entire system including water tanks

 

The 2nd option is probably the most common and works well.  I've went with option 3 at our place.  The only thing we leave on is our heated line through the ice at the lake.  It took a few trys and some broken pipes to get it right, but now it's maintenance free.  Takes about 15 mins when we leave and when we arrive to deal with water.  I do believe the savings are significant.  This year I'm installing mysa thermostats for the baseboard heaters so I have the option to heat the place up remotely prior to arrival through an app.

[oldslowsledder]

Question, is the foundation built on bedrock? Ours is and the rock maintains warmth through out the winter as longs as the basement is sealed and insulated well

[stoney]

9 hours ago, Steve F6 said:

What kinda furnace?

Currently has baseboards and wood stove. 
Adding one for this possible cottage if we keep heat on in winter would be something to consider. 

[stoney]

19 minutes ago, oldslowsledder said:

Question, is the foundation built on bedrock? Ours is and the rock maintains warmth through out the winter as longs as the basement is sealed and insulated well

That is currently an unknown, but I’ve done some reading and that is best case scenario for this situation. 
Given the surrounding, I don’t think it is. 

[snowchopper]

When i first purchased my place it was not winter ready.The people only used it in the summer and shut it down for the winter.It had electric baseboard and wood for heat. So first plan of attack was to have water year round. I draw off the lake so that resulted in burying the water line deeper from the building into the lake. This avoided the use of heat trace cable. Now i needed to heat the crawl space so that the plumbing and pump wouldn't freeze.To do this i used a 4800 watt electric heater .Up on the main floor i kept the electric heaters at 50 degrees.When i would arrive i would turn on the power for the water pump,uv light,elec hot water heater then fire up the wood stove and turn its fan on to blow the heat around.A couple of hours later it would bearable enough to remove your coat. Pull back your bed sheets so that your bed gets warm too. It took probably a good 8 hours to have the walls ,furniture etc fully warmed up. The heat would radiate enough to the crawl space that the heater would not come on when i was there. There were no vents from the main floor to the crawl space.My crawl space is roughly 4feet deep across the whole space.My place is just over 1000 sq ft. When i would leave i would shut off the power to the pump,uv light and hot water. I would open the doors to the vanity in the bathroom and the doors to the kitchen sink so that the heat would keep the pipes under the sinks from from freezing.Did that for a few years then had a oil furnace installed in the crawl space with duct work.After it was installed i would turn the furnace down to 10 celcius. Then i realized that the furnace would work hard trying to get my place up to temperature when i would arrive. So after that i would only turn it down to 15 celcius when i would leave. It was easier on the furnace to bring the place up to temperature and the difference in the oil bill could hardly be noticed. I would still shut off the pump,uv light and hot water when i would leave. 

[stoney]

A little more info on why I am asking this......we are looking at cottages and one of interest has come up that happens to have a basement that is partially finished and the other half is the utility room. The previous owner lived here year round.

Having a cottage with a basement is not on our checklist as our intentions for winter use is not to have have running water, etc....so I am wondering what people that have a basement / foundation do in the winter as it brings into the equation a concern for me or at least something that needs to be considered.

My initial thought is I would want to keep it heated somewhat when not there to avoid issues with the structure. It has baseboards now that can be left on but adding a furnace would likely be a good investment for this purpose and still heat when there with the wood stove.

Draining the water, etc....before we leave is not an issue to make those modifications to allow that, the water line right now to the cottage is a heated one as well.

 

Thanks for the feedback thus far! 

[UsedtoSkidoo]

1 hour ago, stoney said:

A little more info on why I am asking this......we are looking at cottages and one of interest has come up that happens to have a basement that is partially finished and the other half is the utility room. The previous owner lived here year round.

Having a cottage with a basement is not on our checklist as our intentions for winter use is not to have have running water, etc....so I am wondering what people that have a basement / foundation do in the winter as it brings into the equation a concern for me or at least something that needs to be considered.

My initial thought is I would want to keep it heated somewhat when not there to avoid issues with the structure. It has baseboards now that can be left on but adding a furnace would likely be a good investment for this purpose and still heat when there with the wood stove.

Draining the water, etc....before we leave is not an issue to make those modifications to allow that, the water line right now to the cottage is a heated one as well.

 

Thanks for the feedback thus far! 

put a couple of small baseboards in basement. Will help with the ones upstairs as well. The less cold you have to combat the better. And basements are easy to keep warm. However if you have exposed bedrock you need to cover it as it will weep and be wet down there which will cause long term issues. 6mm poly over it is cheao and easy.

 

 

Keep in mind if the place you buy has modern building materials then you need to keep it heated. If its pine and stuff Circa 1980 then its fine to let freeze

 

 

[stoney]

2 minutes ago, UsedtoSkidoo said:

put a couple of small baseboards in basement. Will help with the ones upstairs as well. The less cold you have to combat the better. And basements are easy to keep warm. However if you have exposed bedrock you need to cover it as it will weep and be wet down there which will cause long term issues. 6mm poly over it is cheao and easy.

 

 

Keep in mind if the place you buy has modern building materials then you need to keep it heated. If its pine and stuff Circa 1980 then its fine to let freeze

 

 

There are already baseboards there throughout main floor and basement, just not sure of the number of them, but they are there for sure......of course the hydro bill to keep them on low during the cold months is unknown, but potentially considering a furnace install if it is stupid monthly hydro bills is not a bad thing to do either or that hard either.

Basement is poured concrete floor, no exposed bedrock and the foundation walls are cinder blocks with a stucco installed on the exterior.

The cottage was built into the side of a hill, so only half of the cottage is below grade, the other half is above grade......so that is good in my eyes.

Nothing fancy for building materials either.....wood siding, carpet & vinyl flooring, etc.....so nothing to worry about there.

[UsedtoSkidoo]

22 minutes ago, stoney said:

There are already baseboards there throughout main floor and basement, just not sure of the number of them, but they are there for sure......of course the hydro bill to keep them on low during the cold months is unknown, but potentially considering a furnace install if it is stupid monthly hydro bills is not a bad thing to do either or that hard either.

Basement is poured concrete floor, no exposed bedrock and the foundation walls are cinder blocks with a stucco installed on the exterior.

The cottage was built into the side of a hill, so only half of the cottage is below grade, the other half is above grade......so that is good in my eyes.

Nothing fancy for building materials either.....wood siding, carpet & vinyl flooring, etc.....so nothing to worry about there.

then your good, I wouldnt worry too much. Leave the baseboards at 50 degrees and you should be fine,

[signfan]

If you're going to leave heat on go with a furnace (your winter heating cost will be 1/2 the hydro bill).  Better still would be a lake source heat pump if you're going to heat year round and stay there for some time.  If you decide to let it freeze then the payback isn't there for weekend use only and you're better to stick with baseboard heat.  With the basement there you will get a thermal mass effect.  It will take forever to thaw it out and vise versa if you ever get it heated up it will take along time for it to freeze.  My parents place is this way.  The pellet stove in the basement never shuts off because the slab floor has absorbed and stored so much cold.  The woodstove upstairs does get the upper level to an uncomfortably hot state within 8 hours if you keep a constant fire burning.  This is from below freezing temps inside in mid January.

[Strong Farmer]

I put furnace in with a heat exchanger to recapture as much waste heat as possible. They are reasonable today. 
i wouldn’t have temperature any lower then 65 F if you don’t have an automatic generator. My uncle has a propane fire place that is old school pilot lights. He leaves those on low when he leaves it. Then If hydro goes out the fire place will create enough heat to keep it from freezing. Good idea to get some remote controlled thermo stats and some kind of temperature alarm warning system too. 
I seen lots of damage when people only heat cottage or house to 50 F when on vacation then power goes out for a day and pipes freeze. If it would have been left at 65 F wouldn’t have happened. Once heated stand by heat isn’t that expensive from a propane furnace or pelleted one. Good luck. 

[vooodooo]

4 hours ago, stoney said:

There are already baseboards there throughout main floor and basement, just not sure of the number of them, but they are there for sure......of course the hydro bill to keep them on low during the cold months is unknown, but potentially considering a furnace install if it is stupid monthly hydro bills is not a bad thing to do either or that hard either.

Basement is poured concrete floor, no exposed bedrock and the foundation walls are cinder blocks with a stucco installed on the exterior.

The cottage was built into the side of a hill, so only half of the cottage is below grade, the other half is above grade......so that is good in my eyes.

Nothing fancy for building materials either.....wood siding, carpet & vinyl flooring, etc.....so nothing to worry about there.

Everyone has given good advice.

My only caveat is the cinder block walls. 

Full disclosure, I am a big fan of poured concrete walls.

Block walls are fine, above grade, in a dry environment.

Many codes say how tall and where,  the block wall needs to be filled with concrete/cement. 

A few years ago I did a pour at one of these block walls. Code said only after an 8 foot high wall, above grade.

That fills in the blocks, makes it a solid wall.

My previous house, buddy did a block wall for the garage. No filler in the blocks.

Water got in it, froze and blew the adhesion from block to block.

You literally could lean on the wood wall and the block below would move.

Ended up locking in the wall to the reinforced floor I poured.

Water is nasty, frozen water is super nasty.

 

 

[signfan]

2 hours ago, vooodooo said:

Everyone has given good advice.

My only caveat is the cinder block walls. 

Full disclosure, I am a big fan of poured concrete walls.

Block walls are fine, above grade, in a dry environment.

Many codes say how tall and where,  the block wall needs to be filled with concrete/cement. 

A few years ago I did a pour at one of these block walls. Code said only after an 8 foot high wall, above grade.

That fills in the blocks, makes it a solid wall.

My previous house, buddy did a block wall for the garage. No filler in the blocks.

Water got in it, froze and blew the adhesion from block to block.

You literally could lean on the wood wall and the block below would move.

Ended up locking in the wall to the reinforced floor I poured.

Water is nasty, frozen water is super nasty.

 

 

What he said.  Good advise!!!

[Turbo Doo]

There's enough hot air in some threads on OC, that could keep a place warm FOREVER. Just saying. Great thread and posts fellow ocers....

[stoney]

3 hours ago, vooodooo said:

Everyone has given good advice.

My only caveat is the cinder block walls. 

Full disclosure, I am a big fan of poured concrete walls.

Block walls are fine, above grade, in a dry environment.

Many codes say how tall and where,  the block wall needs to be filled with concrete/cement. 

A few years ago I did a pour at one of these block walls. Code said only after an 8 foot high wall, above grade.

That fills in the blocks, makes it a solid wall.

My previous house, buddy did a block wall for the garage. No filler in the blocks.

Water got in it, froze and blew the adhesion from block to block.

You literally could lean on the wood wall and the block below would move.

Ended up locking in the wall to the reinforced floor I poured.

Water is nasty, frozen water is super nasty.

 

 

I agree as well, poured is far better - and with blocks, there is an added concern.....plus usually a block foundation is older that generally will not have an external barrier system installed.

However I would not consider a cottage because it has blocks, rather no basement altogether, just trying to take all things into consideration.

 

Our current house has blocks on the old side of it, with a cinder block knee wall - was such a wonderful building practice back in the day.....

[Spiderman]

22 hours ago, stoney said:

I have a couple of inquiries pertaining to cottages and winters that some here may be able to share their first hand experiences or thoughts on.
Assuming cottage has been winterized otherwise. 
 

1) Does anyone have a four season cottage with a basement foundation and do you keep heat on low in basement all the time while not there?

 

2) What are people’s thoughts on the above scenario regarding heating your cottage with basement foundation - will     or can a lack of heat below grade cause foundation or floor issues during cold winter months

 

 Thank you 

Our original cottage was built in 1988 - winterized - finished basement - all electric heating in basement - block foundation wall- main level electric with woodstove.

During winter - we kept heat at 10 when we were not there - upstairs and downstairs - never froze and was okay coming in on friday nights at 11:00 p.m.

[Strong Farmer]

8 hours ago, Spiderman said:

Our original cottage was built in 1988 - winterized - finished basement - all electric heating in basement - block foundation wall- main level electric with woodstove.

During winter - we kept heat at 10 when we were not there - upstairs and downstairs - never froze and was okay coming in on friday nights at 11:00 p.m.

You have an automatic generator just wondering? Stands by heat costs isn’t that much when a place is empty and no doors are being opened or closed. 
My uncle says his power goes out a day at a time up in parry sound. Place almost frooze a few times but he never kept it minimum temp like you. 
Now he has a fully automatic generator to keep heat on. I believe he bought a propane one. Every couple degrees F buys you an hour or two depending on outside temperature and winds. 
 

[UsedtoSkidoo]

1 hour ago, Strong Farmer said:

You have an automatic generator just wondering? Stands by heat costs isn’t that much when a place is empty and no doors are being opened or closed. 
My uncle says his power goes out a day at a time up in parry sound. Place almost frooze a few times but he never kept it minimum temp like you. 
Now he has a fully automatic generator to keep heat on. I believe he bought a propane one. Every couple degrees F buys you an hour or two depending on outside temperature and winds. 
 

power never went out a full day last winter. usually a few hours at a time.

[ArcticCrusher]

10 hours ago, Spiderman said:

Our original cottage was built in 1988 - winterized - finished basement - all electric heating in basement - block foundation wall- main level electric with woodstove.

During winter - we kept heat at 10 when we were not there - upstairs and downstairs - never froze and was okay coming in on friday nights at 11:00 p.m.

Thats the basic setup I have as well.

[ArcticCrusher]

1 hour ago, Strong Farmer said:

You have an automatic generator just wondering? Stands by heat costs isn’t that much when a place is empty and no doors are being opened or closed. 
My uncle says his power goes out a day at a time up in parry sound. Place almost frooze a few times but he never kept it minimum temp like you. 
Now he has a fully automatic generator to keep heat on. I believe he bought a propane one. Every couple degrees F buys you an hour or two depending on outside temperature and winds. 
 

We are in Parry Sound and that is not the norm, it would be extreme.  Even a few years ago in the summer trees nocked down power, it was back up after about 8 hours, the winter is rare but does happen and likely for a couple of hours.  With internet I know exactly when it goes off.

[UsedtoSkidoo]

10 hours ago, Spiderman said:

Our original cottage was built in 1988 - winterized - finished basement - all electric heating in basement - block foundation wall- main level electric with woodstove.

During winter - we kept heat at 10 when we were not there - upstairs and downstairs - never froze and was okay coming in on friday nights at 11:00 p.m.

my neigbour flicks a couple of switches for us now. So its not heated but within a few hours its 20 degreed in there.

 

BTW- that float plane by your parents is cool as hell but an eyesore to look at on a daily basis

[Spiderman]

8 minutes ago, UsedtoSkidoo said:

my neigbour flicks a couple of switches for us now. So its not heated but within a few hours its 20 degreed in there.

 

BTW- that float plane by your parents is cool as hell but an eyesore to look at on a daily basis

 - definitely seems like a nice new toy