Move Thermostat from Basement to Main Floor?

[Nir]

Hi,

Not sure if I should call a heating contractor, wanted to consult with the experts before:

The thermostat in a triplex I purchased in Orillia is located in the basement for some reason.

The property is heated with a forced air gas furnace.

Interestingly, soon after sealing the basement (after the purchase) so it is heated more efficiently, one of the tenants from the main floor complained it is too cold in her apartment. I guess the reason is the basement reaches the target temperature faster now and as a result the furnace is not working long enough to heat other units properly(?)
Is it rare to have the thermostatat in the beasmeent or actually pretty common?

Does it make sense that to resolve the issue the thermostat should be moved to the main floor or is it most likely something else? THANKS.

Another option is to open a window in the basement (joking)

 

[invst4profit]

(I am not an expert)

It is strange to find the thermostat in the basement in my experience.
You could move the thermostat up stairs but you may still experience balancing problems.
A heating specialist may be called but is not necessary. What you need to do is balance the amount of heat directed to each region of the building. If the thermostat is to remain in the basement you need to reduce the flow to that area to allow more flow to the upstairs before the basement reaches temperature and turned off the furnace.
If you move the thermostat upstairs you again need to balance the flow upstairs (reduce) to allow the basement to heat before the thermostat upstairs turned off the furnace.

To achieve the balance you need to have a damper (shutoff) in each heating duct in the furnace room. You control this not the tenants. Most heating systems are installed with these in place but can easily be added by the owner. It is an adjustable shutoff in each individual heating duct that is opened/closed to regulate air flow.Explain to your tenants what you are doing and experiment with flow until a balance is reached.

If it were me I would prefer the thermostat in a upstairs central location in a locked box that no tenant could access.

 

[Nir]

Thank You Greg for the excellent clear explanation!

Will do..

Regards,
Neil

 

[DOZAH]

Hey,

I had this problem in the past.
I have an up/down bungalow duplex (one family of tenants upstairs and I split the basement up to rent rooms seperate with total 4 rooms which i rented to students)
I put the thermostat upstairs and bought space heaters for the tenants downstairs so they don`t start complaining about it being too cold.
I also had tiles downstairs that tended to get cold quickly so I bought some cheap and simple area rugs for some of the common areas.

Electric bills have gone up slightly but that was to be expected.

good luck.

 

[bigbabba]

myself being an hvac/r mechanic i will give you my expericence, you will NEVER satisfy everyone in that triplex with one t-stat regardless of where you put it.

you will need to add electric heaters (baseboards) so that each tenant can control their own heat. The damper suggestion is ok, but will not eliminate the problem as they are not air tight.

when the summer comes you will have lots of cooling and humidity issues..thats for another day I guess.

I deal with this kind of stuff on a regular basis and its pretty annoying.

 

[Pheenix]

QUOTE (bigbabba @ Nov 25 2008, 09:37 PM) myself being an hvac/r mechanic i will give you my expericence, you will NEVER satisfy everyone in that triplex with one t-stat regardless of where you put it.

you will need to add electric heaters (baseboards) so that each tenant can control their own heat. The damper suggestion is ok, but will not eliminate the problem as they are not air tight.

when the summer comes you will have lots of cooling and humidity issues..thats for another day I guess.

I deal with this kind of stuff on a regular basis and its pretty annoying.

Just curious, is it possible to retrofit zone controls with powered dampers and induct fans, in a situation like this?

 

[Kimberly]

We own 3 plexes with similar challenges. In one located outside Ottawa (ie longer winters, lower temperatures), we hired a furnace technician who installed a specialized thermostat in the basement - an electronic programmable one that reads temperatures from wired remote temperature probes that have been installed in the largest rooms in each apartment, and not in the basement. The way the probes work is that they continually read the temperature from each location and feeds the data back to the thermostat. In turn the thermostat takes the average of the temperatures read, and compares the average to the setting you`ve programed into the thermostat and adjusts the furnace to maintain the set temperature. Further insights...costs: thermostat $300 - $600 plus probes at $200 - $500 each, plus installation; initial upfront costs mitigated by some tenants less likely to open windows to cool off hotter apartment(s); furnace tends to run less thus energy costs tend to decrease (we found up to 20% savings), along with less wear and tear on furnace. Also the probes are placed in largest rooms vs small hallways/rooms as smaller spaces heat up faster and could provide false readings for total apartment level of comfort.

Also by having the thermostat in the basement, you don`t have to inconvienence one of your tenants by having to access their apartment to adjust thermostat locked behind plastic cage (especially in the later fall/early winter until temperatures normalize below freezing).

Another suggestion, a lot more cost effective....although we haven`t tried this one yet, I have also seen a thermostat at Home Depot that has one wireless remote sensor that can be placed in a separate room, so it reads temperatures other than where the thermostat is. For under $100 this might work. I`m thinking I`d install this thermostat in one of the apartments, so I`d get temperature readings from the apartment with the thermostat along with the remote sensor in another apartment... at least that way you`d be reading temperatures from 2 of the 3 apartments. For this cost, you wouldn`t get temperature averaging etc like the method initially described and I`m not sure how a wireless remote would function - guess it would depend on how big your building is and the distance/interference between the placement of the thermostat and wireless remote sensor.

Our triplexes are in Ontario, and the city requires each apartment to be at minimum temperatures during certain hours of the day and night, no matter what the main thermostat might read. Add on top of that differences in heat preference amongst tenants in different apartments and the plot thickens. Ideally the best way is to have each apartment individually heated so the tenants pay their own heat, hydro and water. Preferred but sometimes cost prohibitive.

I continue to explore ways to divide up another triplex that`s heated by gas boiler that feeds all 3 apartments. If anyone has any ideas.... other than installing electrical baseboards..... drop me a reply... I`m trying to find a way to continue to use the water rads in each apartment, and somehow install separate tankless water heaters to be the `boiler` for 2 of the 3 apartments on the main floor, and leave the current boiler to heat the apartment on the upper floor. Pipe dream perhaps. I`ve been researching methods used in Europe, as they tend to be big on used of boiler/hot water heating systems. All suggestions welcomed....