Moving heat

Congrats on your first burn in your new stove!

I screwed around with different fan placement and varying degrees of extreme temperatures to get the best 'perceived' comfort level throughout. But I'm working with a stove and living area on the same level; not heating from below. It always took a good 2-3 hours to get things evened out in rooms besides the stove area.

Many here will say to blow the cold room air towards the stove and this will create a natural convection.
On the notion that heat rises; in a split level situation I'd think about ways to promote that to work for you.
You may want a fan blowing across the stove to move the heat in the direction you want it.
Perhaps there is a stairwell near the stove you can aim a pedestal fan towards the upper living area?
Is there a ceiling fan in the same room as the stove to help spread the heat around?
Maybe you can blow a fan across the stove, towards the door/stairwell it needs to go up?
Food for thought...I'm sure others heating from a lower level will chime in also.

I've been heating from the basement for two years now. It is more about moving the cold air back down to the stove- the heat will naturally replace it.
The more like a loop you can make the airflow, the better. But if you're stuuck with one corridor between levels (e.g. stairwell), then it is what it is. Many have used a small fan to blow cold air down the stairwell with success.

You'd be amazed at what a ceiling fan can do.

Just saying !

Very similar to My setup. No way to loop air, but small fan near front door pointed up worked ok. Think ceiling fan would work better.

Try sealing the bedroom windows with plastic to maximize the heat you get. I believe I've seen here cutting a hole may violate code.

Warm air is less dense and hard to push with a fan. Try putting a fan at the top of the stairwell (floorlevel) blowing cold air down the stairs towards the stove. You can check the airflow with little strips of tissue paper in the top of door openings. Warm air should flow from the stove room to the rest of the house.

Concentrate on blowing cold air from the room farthest from the stove back towards the stove. In this respect several smaller fans will be more beneficial than any ceiling fan.
The alternative is to do what you've already contemplated- cut holes in the floor to get a loop going. Just see if you can get comfy without going having to do that.

Colestarkey26 said:

I had my first fire the other day in my new buck 74! The stove is on the bottom floor in my split level. It is right under the bedrooms, and I'm weighing my options on how to get the heat moving upstairs. I have ceiling fans on both upper levels reversed but it's not enough to pull the heat. Wondering if anyone else tackled it efficiently.

Click to expand...

I have no problem heating both levels of our 1500 sq ft home with one wood stove, but I do all the things they often recommend against in this forum. I blow the warm (less dense) air. I circulate the air in our home through the furnace vents using the furnace fan, and I even cut a hole through between the floor levels.
It's only a mater of time until my membership is revoked. But at least I'll be warm

I bet a small 8" desktop fan placed on the floor at the top of the stair, and pointed down into the stove room, will be more effective than any combination of ceiling fans. If split level, then a small fan on the floor at the top of each stair.

I use a floor fan blowing towards the stove at the bottom of my stairs in a split entry set up. Going with the natural flow I could feel coming down the stairs rather than fighting it. I also have a cold air return directly across from the stove about 15 ft away that goes directly into the furnace. It does help equalize the temp between up stairs and down. I only mainly run the furnace fan at night to move air for when the stove burns down in the wee hours of the morning so it keeps the bedrooms a tad warmer. I also have a humidifier on it so that helps with the dryness created as well.

I see keeping the furnace fan on a negative, at least on my end, if i go in my basement its cold, or should i say a lot cooler, as well as the ducts, so all im doing is cooling the hot air and by time it reaches the upstairs im blowing cold air. Have anybody else notice this?

I should mention my stove is in the finished basement and it gets quite warm down there! I close most of the ducts upstairs so essentially it acts as my fan blowing towards the woodstove area pushing the heat out of the basement. Im still going to play around and fine tune it some more as I moved into this house last Feb. So didn't get much time to try different things.

In the old family split-level, we had only one low doorway in the air path, middle level, between the kitchen and living room. Everything else was ceiling height to the next level. If that's your situation, I might try cutting a large vent space in the transom above that doorway. Seems like the natural convection would get a big boost that way...