Heating Basement Fishroom

[rastamon34]

I live in Wisconsin and have just framed off and drywalled a 10 by 15 foot portion of my basement. I'm going to pink foam board the exposed cinderblock walls and work on insulating now. My basement in the winter can be 60 degrees at its coldest, this is without any insulation, and 78 79 degrees at its hottest in summer. I obviously will run a dehumidifier in the summer. 

I mostly keep guppies and have done this super successfully, at room temperature in the upstairs of my house where the thermostat in winter is usually 68 69, so sometimes dropping to 65 or so at night. I'm really just looking to raise the temperature 10 degrees to around 70 in the winter, and am running out of time to test warming the place up as it is getting to be spring here. I'd love if someone could recommend me the exact space heater, wall heater, or whatever they are using to heat their fish room. Maybe a temperature controller also? The more I read about every heater I've researched I get sketched out by a review of it almost burning the house down. I keep getting discouraged to pull the trigger on any type of space heater as I look at reviews. Anyone have one they've been using for a year and not burnt the house down, feel comfortable with it running when they are away? I'll honestly probably set up a wifi camera down there to keep an eye on it anyways, not that it can put out fires. Am I just too paranoid about space heaters of old, and modern ones are different?

 

[lefty o]

i see a lot of duct work in that space, can you add in a heat register?

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@Jimmyfound one but I think he mentioned he was sizing up. You should check his build thread. 

[Kathy F]

My disabled 17-year-old has a finished playroom in the basement.  I can say from experience even though the room is hooked into the central unit, the heat never reaches his downstairs room.  This is really bad since my son had autonomic dysfunction due to a brain malformation (meaning he has a harder time controlling his internal body temperature).   I run a little Holmes heater fan down there with a built-in thermostat.  It has all the built-in safety features, cool to touch, auto shut off and a built-in thermostat.  It has been his only heating source for years in his 10x10 room (fully insulated) and it works really well.   We have to run it at 78 all winter long, again my teenage can't maintain his body heat.   They unfortunately don't make it anymore.   We tried a Fujitsu mini-split in the larger basement room (no duct work in that area of the basement so had to drill the outer wall) and it did a crappy job heating but a decent job cooling in summer.   I have a natural gas heater that works well for that room but it is not automatically controlled some one has to constantly turn it up or down to their comfort level.    I find the Holmes heater to be our most reliable heater that can run autonomously.   

This have just been my experience heating basement areas.  I have heard the Mitsubishi mini-splits are wonderful and come with a 10 year warranty from a builder that installs them on tiny homes but I have no personal experience so maybe another option to consider.   

[Widgets]

The problem with a basic residential  HVAC system is that there is one master control thermostat and all the other rooms get what they can. It is an art balancing the flow through the vents to keep every room at a decent temperature. There is a system closer to the commercial HVAC system where each room has a thermostat that controls dampers for the vents. I think the biggest change is having a bypass damper that ensures the back pressure on the system is maintained within design specs. One of the benefits was being able to limit the heating/cooling of seldom areas, like a guest room. You just set the thermostat when you want to use the room.

I have no experience with them, and decided against it due to some potential issues with high humidity in the seldom used rooms.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Widgets
Stupid typos

[BeeD]

Might be expensive, but if you can afford it, you could install a baseboard heater or have an electrician install it, could even have a thermostat for it. I hope I'm not wrong, but I believe they're more reliable than plug-ins. My fish room is primarily heated by one. I have backup aquarium heaters, in case the baseboard goes bad, but the thing is decades old and going strong.  

 

[rastamon34]

Thanks for the info everyone, there is a lot of ductwork for the heating cooling of the whole house, I'd have to imagine it would be quite expensive to have another offshoot vent and independent thermostat installed, although it would probably be most energy efficient. I've got quite a bit of insulating to do yet, but with the drywall up on that framing, and running one of those radiator style looking electric space heaters all day yesterday while I was home, I brought the room up from 60 to 67. I turned it off before bed, and it seemed to hold the temp a while. Still just did not trust leaving the space heater on constantly, while I was asleep or not home. I guess that is something I will have to get over, since it seems tons of people just run space heaters in their fish room safely.

[Ragnarok12]

You can always plug the space heater into a wifi timer and have it automatically turn off at night, if you are uncomfortable having it on while you sleep. It will also allow you to control it from a distance if you are ever traveling. You may want to check and make sure that the wifi timer can sustain the level of electricity throughput required by a space heater. It would also be more cost effective to have it run for 16 hours a day instead of 24, and would mimic the rise in fall in daytime and nighttime temperatures that many fish are used to. Just a thought.

[Guppysnail]

Hubby and I got one of these this year. It is awesome and can’t start fires apparently