jJim McLaughlin wrote:

maurice wrote:

Hi.

I live in a 40 year old bungalow in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, up
north where the winters are very cold. I've got three forced air
furnaces in my house, one that heats the basement, one the main floor,
and one the addition. All of the furnaces seem to work just fine.
I've been in the attic, which is insulated uniformly with wood chips.
I will blow in some more insulation once I've finished some potlights
and wiring, but the insulation is likley adequate up there (the snow
on the roof doesn't melt any faster than the neighbours, and actually
a bit slower than most, which is generally a good sign).

The heat in the addition and the basement are just fine. However,
parts of the main floor are always cold, especially the living room,
which has some pretty big windows and, though it has three heating
vents, is the farthest room from the furnace. I figure it will always
be a battle to heat it.

Anyway, I am doing some work in the basement, and the ceiling is
mostly open during the reno. The previous owners insulated every
interior wall cavity in the basement, as well as the entire ceiling,
with fibreglass batts. They were musicians / music teachers, and I
assume they insulated everywhere more for sound than anything else. I
haven't removed the insulation, but it occurs to me that perhaps with
a warm basement, removing all of this insulation would make for a
warmer main floor?

Just wondering if anybody out there has any experience on this, or an
informed opinion? thanks in advance for your help.

Maurice

You had a lot of thoughtful answers through out the thread, but the best
one is the one aout the living room windows.

You have themal loss there. The windows are the one "odd" feature in
the cold room. Thats a big hint

Your best bang for the buck is to increase the window effeciency.

Clear plastic cover outside over entire widows beginning in late
October, say at Thanksgiving , through April?

Clear plastic inside over entire windows beginning late October, again
say at Thanksgiving, through April?

Replace windows in 40 year old house with modern triple pane glass windows.

You need to cut the thermal loss throgh the widows before you think
about boosting the haet flow into the room. Regardlesss of how much you
boost that heat low, you are going to be putting that heat outside
until you correct the windows.

Hi,
Energy audit always shows window is the worst heat loser. Now our local
builders are using triple glazed Argon gas filled Low E windows more and
more. Cost little more but worth it for the long run,