Moving air around house

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tinman1

tinman1

Member
Oct 28, 2014
123
Long Island New York
Thanks to this site I have knowledge. Thanks to all who give there In put. Just to give you an idea about my house & insert that I have here it goes.
The insert is a EPA 65,000 btu osburn with a fan in it & it's in the living room , dining room area which is one open floor plan
My house : 50 years old with old insulation in walls & ceilings ,3/8 Sheetrock .
The living room , dining area has cathedral ceilings apprx 15'-6" to the peak , & that's where the insert is. The cathedral has BIG HEATLOSS & BIG HEAT GAIN (summertime)
There's a hallway behind leading to the bedroom area with 8' Sheetrock ceilings and a well insulated attic above that area . Because it takes a LONG time for that one bedroom that's inline with the living room area , I was curious to see if a box fan would speed up the convection process, so what I did was taped up some toilet paper from the 8' ceilings in 2 different spots , There is a natural convection going on, the paper is slightly blowing towards the bedroom. . When I turned the fan on that is on the floor in the bedroom I noticed that there was NO difference at all when the fan is on! There is a natural convection period ! What I'm wondering is if I was to install a wall grille above the bedroom door on both sides of the wall would that speed up the convection due to the fact that the air can go straight thru the wall with out having to drop down below the top of the doorway ? I think they call that a transom ? Has any body else tried something similar to what I have done ?
 
Difficult situation to deal with. Are you running the fan blowing out of the bedroom or in? I've had some success with blowing the air out of the bedrooms at the floor, allowing warmer air to flow in at the top of the doorway. Tissue test shows this.

I would think that opening a vent as high as possible in the room would help some.

Is it possible to install a ceiling fan in the stove room up high? My ceiling fan helps a lot, blowing upwards, which forces warmer air to flow to the walls and down. It helps a lot in mixing up the stratified air and getting it down lower.
 
Sprinter said:
Difficult situation to deal with. Are you running the fan blowing out of the bedroom or in? I've had some success with blowing the air out of the bedrooms at the floor, allowing warmer air to flow in at the top of the doorway. Tissue test shows this.

I would think that opening a vent as high as possible in the room would help some.

Is it possible to install a ceiling fan in the stove room up high? My ceiling fan helps a lot, blowing upwards, which forces warmer air to flow to the walls and down. It helps a lot in mixing up the stratified air and getting it down lower.
Click to expand...
Yes I have the bedroom fan blowing out of the bedroom. I do have a ceiling fan in the stove room BUT I HAVE IT RUNNING COUNTER CLOCKWISE ? No ?
 
tinman1 said:
I do have a ceiling fan in the stove room BUT I HAVE IT RUNNING COUNTER CLOCKWISE ? No ?
Click to expand...
Which ever way is upward flow.:) Most situations that works best and doesn't cause any unpleasant drafts.
 
Box fans are great. Even though they move a lot of air, you don't want to be sitting near one. The air will feel pretty cool, unless it's above 76-78*.

I have one box fan sitting horizontally on my upstairs venting grate. I have it set up to pull heat from ceiling downstairs. The heat then rises, and the coooler air goes back down the stairs to the wood stove/living area. It works PHENOMENAL. After 3-4 hours, the temperature differential is less than 1.5* from upstairs to downstairs. 950sq ft upstairs, 950sq downstairs!
 
tinman1 said:
Thanks to this site I have knowledge. Thanks to all who give there In put. Just to give you an idea about my house & insert that I have here it goes.
The insert is a EPA 65,000 btu osburn with a fan in it & it's in the living room , dining room area which is one open floor plan
My house : 50 years old with old insulation in walls & ceilings ,3/8 Sheetrock .
The living room , dining area has cathedral ceilings apprx 15'-6" to the peak , & that's where the insert is. The cathedral has BIG HEATLOSS & BIG HEAT GAIN (summertime)
There's a hallway behind leading to the bedroom area with 8' Sheetrock ceilings and a well insulated attic above that area . Because it takes a LONG time for that one bedroom that's inline with the living room area , I was curious to see if a box fan would speed up the convection process, so what I did was taped up some toilet paper from the 8' ceilings in 2 different spots , There is a natural convection going on, the paper is slightly blowing towards the bedroom. . When I turned the fan on that is on the floor in the bedroom I noticed that there was NO difference at all when the fan is on! There is a natural convection period ! What I'm wondering is if I was to install a wall grille above the bedroom door on both sides of the wall would that speed up the convection due to the fact that the air can go straight thru the wall with out having to drop down below the top of the doorway ? I think they call that a transom ? Has any body else tried something similar to what I have done ?
Click to expand...
I had a Lopi insert for 2 winters. Very beautiful well made stove, but it was an insert with a blower fan. It just never got my house warm enough, more a glorified fireplace than anything. The fan noise was annoying, and eventually it ended up blowing fine ash throughout the house. Inevitable. Sold it and bought a freestanding stove. It has made all the difference in the world. Planning to install 2 registers in the ceiling of the room where stove located to move more heat upstairs. That ought to do it. My two cents.
 
Which way should you have your ceiling fan going? Down or up? I made a thread about this. Down blows the heat down on me. Up is suppose to be the way the experts says on TV.
 
NJ_Burner08002 said:
Which way should you have your ceiling fan going? Down or up? I made a thread about this. Down blows the heat down on me. Up is suppose to be the way the experts says on TV.
Click to expand...
You can try it both ways, but I've found that blowing up forces the air across the ceiling and down the walls, distributing it better. I also don't like the draft with it blowing down.
 
In my great room I can keep the heat downstairs better with it blowing down. The adjacent kitchen really struggles to get much heat. If I have it pulling up the heat goes up and stays up, I suppose in that case the heat shooting across the ceiling tends to stay in the raised center area more and gets channelled to the open hallway on the second floor and MBR. Even when blowing down there is plenty of natural convection that will heat the MBR so I just go that route. I think different layouts are going to have different results here. I also dont think my great room is insulated for crap, its only a 2x4 wall anyhow, and with the cathedral ceiling they didnt leave much space there for insulation but hard to tell. At least blowing down seems to only be circulating the warmer air that has risen to the center and not been cooled as much by the walls. But thats just a hunch.
 
This is a good topic , I just installed the wood stove that I had upstairs in my ranch into the basement. Im trying to heat approx. 1700 sq ft. I cut (4) 4"x12" floor registers in (2) in the living room and (2) in the dinning room. The stove is directly under the dinning room floor, I keep the basement door opened and also cut a large 12"x24" hole over the stair way closet. I also have the ceiling fan (in reverse) run low in the dinning room. So far with it 35 deg out I have even heat up stairs in the main living places, I'm ranging between 71 -73 deg in the living room and dinning room. The bed rooms are around 68. The stove is running on low and just cruising along.. So far I'm very happy with the out come. I use to have this stove in the living room and it would bake us out of it, I would also keep the windows open year round. We'll see if she keeps the house warm when it gets real cold out..My ideal temp is in the low 70s with slightly cooler bed rooms. Also my walls are not insulated in the basement..I suppose if the stove can keep the house warm in the winter I'll stud out the walls and insulate them if I have a problem
 
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