Questions about my stove and what I can do to get heat throughout my home

deznuts84 · Oct 8, 2014

Hey Guys!,

I new to the forum and need help/advise ...

This is what I have...

A 2 story home (bedrooms on the 2nd floor and kitchen, bathroom, and living room on the 1st floor)

I have a partly finished basement (that's where my stove is) its also a walkout basement.

I have a few floor vents

The stove it vented via a 8" double wall stainless pipe...

The stove has the factory blower and a magic heat installed..

The problem is that I'm not getting a lot of heat out of it.. I tried a fan to blow the heat upstairs.. it didn't work great. The basement is right around 85 degrees and the 1st floor is 70ish and the bedrooms are 55-60.. granted its only 15 out

I think the air is not moving around, I have read about directly feeding the stove with outside air..

PLEASE any advise would be greatly appreciated ..

Thank you
Derek

Grisu · Oct 8, 2014

What stove is it? Can you post pics if you don't know the model? Btw. I highly recommend getting rid off the Magic Heat. That thing is a creosote factory and a recipe to get a chimney fire.

Try positioning the fan at the top of the stairs blowing cold air down towards the stove room. That should establish a convective loop where the warm air gets pulled upstairs along the ceiling.

For the safety of your family, check if the floor vents are ok with your local fire code. Do they have fusable dampers?

Tim Linden · Oct 8, 2014

Have you tried doorway corner fans? I found on cold nights putting on of those in the farthest room helped. Like Grisu said you want the convection loop going so you dont need high powered but thoughtfully placed fans.

Nick Mystic · Oct 8, 2014

Assuming you have at least a medium size woodstove I would say you are doing pretty good if you are able to get the upstairs (one floor) up into the 70s with a basement installation. Getting much heat up into a third story is a stretch in my experience.

deznuts84 · Oct 9, 2014

Grisu said:
What stove is it? Can you post pics if you don't know the model? Btw. I highly recommend getting rid off the Magic Heat. That thing is a creosote factory and a recipe to get a chimney fire.

Try positioning the fan at the top of the stairs blowing cold air down towards the stove room. That should establish a convective loop where the warm air gets pulled upstairs along the ceiling.

For the safety of your family, check if the floor vents are ok with your local fire code. Do they have fusable dampers?

Thank you for the quick replies !

The stove that I have is a Dutch west Model (Extra Large Heater 2462) .

I know the magic heat requires a lot of attention and regular cleaning to combat the creosote (I clean the stove pipe at least once a month) but to be honest I don't see that much of a different running the magic heat with the build up.

I do have a large fan ( a decent powered 36" I just picked up)..

The floor vents are org. to the home, and they are directional ones.

I'll try the fan up in the kitchen blowing down the basement stairs, I never tried that or event thought of trying that lol

oconnor · Oct 9, 2014

In a bungalow I once owned, I installed fan assisted cold air return ducting from the bedrooms to the floor of the basement rec room where the stove was located. By removing the cold air, the warm air would replace it.

Especially in a basement install, where the stove is below the neutral pressure plane (look up stack effect), you need to do all you can to send relative cold air back to the stove so the warm air can rise out of the basement. Otherwise the only replacement air is what is sucked into the house around basement windows and sill plates.

Hot-Tubes · Oct 9, 2014

Third floor is a stretch....I've had good results moving air between floors by placing a DC fan into the center of a packing foam square cut to fit the register. I used a common PC 12v case fan moving about 50 cfm, but if noise isn't an issue you could bump that up. It could used with a cheap snap switch, timer, or just run 24/7 (about 20 cents a month up here). Drafty sills in the basement should be dealt with if present.

Bill Zelman
www.Hot-Tubes.com

branchburner · Oct 9, 2014

Yup, trying to move the warm air with a fan is like pushing a rope. Moving the cold air with the fan is pulling the rope.

Bigg_Redd · Oct 9, 2014

To answer your question: You're doing as well as could possibly be hoped for.

Frank625 · Oct 9, 2014

Think about moving the stove to the main floor eventually.

Hoozie · Oct 9, 2014

Crack a window in the basement, then upstairs, put a fan in a window blowing out?

Not ideal, but should help move air through the house if you can't get an internal cold air return.

oconnor · Oct 9, 2014

Hoozie said:
Crack a window in the basement, then upstairs, put a fan in a window blowing out?

Not ideal, but should help move air through the house if you can't get an internal cold air return.

It will move air, not sure it will help heat the house.

begreen · Oct 9, 2014

Not a good idea to increase negative pressure in the basement. There could be draft reversal as the fire dies down.

deznuts84 · Oct 9, 2014

I'm thinking about putting a fan at the top of the basement stairs and blowing the air down and hopefully it increases the positive air pressure and I forces the air up trough the floor vents

begreen · Oct 9, 2014

How many sq feet per floor? Sounds like the stove needs to be on the first floor, especially if there are high ceilings, lots of leaks or poor insulation.

deznuts84 · Oct 9, 2014

begreen said:
How many sq feet per floor? Sounds like the stove needs to be on the first floor, especially if there are high ceilings, lots of leaks or poor insulation.

The 2nd floor is about 350 and the 1st floor is about 450. I'm going to put the plastic on the windows this year and make sure I seal around the window frames really good.

begreen · Oct 9, 2014

OK, that is not daunting. I was expecting something silly like 2000 sq ft per floor. ;lol

If all you are heating is 1200 sq ft total you may do well with the Dutchwest. Blowing cooler upstairs air down the basement stairs is a good start.

Lumber-Jack · Oct 10, 2014

deznuts84 said:
The basement is right around 85 degrees and the 1st floor is 70ish and the bedrooms are 55-60.. granted its only 15 out
Thank you
Derek

So you are losing about 10 - 15 degrees between floors. Without knowing how well your house is insulated I'd say that actually sounds pretty reasonable. With a really old drafty house I could see that being worse, but if you had a super tight house with great insulation I think you could reduce the difference in temperatures a little. However you will never be able to equalize those temperatures exactly. It's always going to be hottest closest to the stove, and coolest in the rooms that are farthest away.

oconnor · Oct 10, 2014

Use a fan on each floor to move the cold air to the stairwell. In the top level, use them on the bedroom floors and blow towards the doors. Gravity and buoyancy will do the rest.

Also, as mentioned previously, use small fans to push cold air down the vents. Warm air well fill in all on it's own.

BSH1F · Oct 10, 2014

I had the same problem trying to get the hot air from my stove on one side of my basement to come up stairs and to the bedrooms on the other side. I found out not running any fans helped me out more, i had 3 fans running from stove to stairs and from stairs to hallway and could not figure out why the bedrooms were still ice cold. So i stopped all fans one night and just had the blower on my stove, i went to the opposite side of the house and cracked a window at the top. I could feel the cold air across my feet at the top of the stairs and hot air was slightly blowing across my head. If your house is to air tight it won't circulate well. That's what i found out. Hope this helps

Laurent Cyr · Oct 10, 2014

You wrote your basement is partially finished. What is `partially``? You may be losing heat there.

deznuts84 · Oct 29, 2014

Laurent Cyr said:
You wrote your basement is partially finished. What is `partially``? You may be losing heat there.

It's drywall on one side and cement walls on the other, the ceilings are drywalled and sespended ceiling on the other half

Laurent Cyr · Oct 29, 2014

deznuts84 said:
It's drywall on one side and cement walls on the other, the ceilings are drywalled and sespended ceiling on the other half

When I started burning wood in my stove in the basement, it was partially finished as well. I found it took a tremendous amount of heat to warm the basement, before the heat found its way upstairs. I have since finished insulating the basement, putting up drywall, and doing the mudding. The ceilings were just done up with drywall. I find the basement is now warmer, and it doesn`t take long for the heat to warm up the basement and find its way upstairs. If you can afford it, you may want to insulate the basement.

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