[bennelson]

Hello All!

I have a 1400 square foot house in Wisconsin, USA. It is a one and a half story, in which the living room and kitchen is just one room with a vaulted ceiling and the upstairs on the other half of the house is an upstairs bedroom.

I have a small cast iron wood stove in the living room. The floor is hardwood, with tile in the bathroom.

I love the woodstove and the heat from it, but would like to get some of the heat into the rest of the house, especially into the cold floor.

My house sits over a clean cement and block crawlspace. Most people in this part of the country have full basements. I couldn't because of hight ground water levels - I am just a block or two from a lake.

I am considering the idea of some sort of modified hydronic heat. If I can run heat from my woodstove to some hot water pipes, then run those under the floor of the kitchen, hall, and bathroom and back, then I can spread out the heat from the stove and have nice warm floors.

I have only ever done really basic plumbing, but am not afraid to experiment.

I am generally thinking that I need some sort of heat exchanging device on the back of the woodstove, maybe an old car radiator? Then a small fluid pump to pump the water through the system, and copper pipe, or maybe PEX to run under the floor.

I would like to keep this really simple - use water, not antifreeze, and not have an expansion tank. I would also like to keep it as affordable as possible.

Does anyone have any suggestions or links to information on something similar to this?

Thanks in advance,

-Ben