hello all

finishing up a basement for family use (mostly as a reading room) and the coming temperature drop is motivating me to look into heating options for the space.

here are the details as it stands:

- about 600 sq ft of finished area, about 1000 sq ft total space (the finished area is separated from the unfinished by wall and doors)
- currently have two options as far as heat: 1) forced air unit that heats the rest of the house has a few vents in the basement but not enough to really warm things to a reasonable temperature in the winter 2) wood burning stove which can warm the space quite well but has all the drawbacks one would expect (you constantly have to feed it, it burns through quite a bit of wood quite quickly, not particularly environmentally friendly, etc.)

so i'm looking for some alternatives. two caveats: we're on an extremely tight budget and we'll probably sell the house within two years so i'm not too interested in anything that requires heavy investing at this point.

any ideas? thanks

alfio

If you were not planning on selling it within a year or two, I would suggest a ductless mini split as they are the ideal item for additions. Since you are planning on selling it, I would just try and utilize the existing ductwork for the main hvac as best as possible and use space heaters or something of the like to get thru a winter. Installing a wood stove or a ductless mini split or any other sort of "system" would be cost prohibitive.

If you are going to be there for 2-3 years(or more) , I'd look at a small mini split heat pump from mitsubishi, fujitsu or daikin. If you are halfway handy you can install it yourself and buy them online at places like ductless depot or go ductless.com type places. It's rather easy.

I'm a big fan of ductless mini splits and I think they are very UNDER used here in the states. With new homes (especially sips and icf's) they are ideal. However, in your situation with an already existing hvac system it would be much wiser to utilize your existing system, especially with your short term stay planned.

You can go to youtube and see some videos of how ductless systems are installed (usually in 1 day or less) and now their registers look like tradiotional american registers.

Good luck!