Getting heat from room to room with a Wood Stove

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chzuck

chzuck

Member
Aug 11, 2014
52
Lancaster County, PA
www.zucksrototillers.com
My wood stove is in my living room and some of the heat gets trapped in that room. I am looking for a unit to install near the ceiling in the side wall with a fan to move some of the heated air to the kitchen/dinning room area. Looking for experiences forum members may have with something like this.
 
There are many threads here on this topic. No one solution works for all situations. It depends on the floorplan, doorway and wall openings and ceiling height. In general an effective way to move the heat is to push air down low, from the cooler parts of the house, into the stove room. In some cases this can be as simple as placing a small fan on the floor in an adjacent room and blowing cooler air into the room. Do a search on "Moving heat" in this forum and many threads should come up. If you can post a sketch of the floorplan we can make some more suggestions.
 
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begreen said:
There are many threads here on this topic. No one solution works for all situations. It depends on the floorplan, doorway and wall openings and ceiling height. In general an effective way to move the heat is to push air down low, from the cooler parts of the house, into the stove room. In some cases this can be as simple as placing a small fan on the floor in an adjacent room and blowing cooler air into the room. Do a search on "Moving heat" in this forum and many threads should come up. If you can post a sketch of the floorplan we can make some more suggestions.
Click to expand...
It's a basic 1100 sq. ft. ranch house. I will get a floor plan and post. Thanks for giving me some search words to work on.
 
No need for a sketch, ranches commonly have this issue. For more even heat in the house put a table or box fan at the far end of the hallway, placed on the floor, pointing toward the woodstove room. Run it on low speed. It will blow the cooler air down low, toward the woodstove. The denser cool air will be replaced with lighter warm air from the stove room. Running this way you should notice at least a 5F increase in the hallway temp after about 30 minutes running. An alternative is to do this with intake grilles in the bedrooms tied to a well insulated duct running through the basement, that blows into the stove room. A quiet, inline bathroom fan (Panasonic) works well for this application. There must be a gap for airflow under the bedroom doors or air passage grilles in the doors or walls.
 
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I have a ranch. On 2 walls by the wood stove (one blowing into the sunroom, one to the family room) I have units built into the wall that move air. They work really well. They look a lot like these.

Google "thru wall transfer fan"

Z1_yovfo5oy.JPG
Here is a round one.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/ThruWall-7-5-8-in-Transfer-Fan-TW108/100047556?cm_mmc=Shopping|THD|G|0|G-BASE-PLA-D26P-AirCirculation|&gclid=Cj0KEQjw7LS6BRDo2Iz23au25OQBEiQAQa6hwDG1SmXrpbBrwnHHLIwKCn_hykaxlAmwnr0l1Ho5R-oaAp1v8P8HAQ&gclsrc=aw.ds
461f05e6-37d8-4649-9558-4d0b0d2ace85_400.jpg
 
I will post my floor plan anyway. As you may expect there is an "air dam" so to speak above the opening from the living room where the stove is to the kitchen/dinning room area. My thought was to put a hole with or without a fan near the ceiling across from the stove to allow heated air into the kitchen side. I know from talking to others that sometimes air movement seldom works the way you think it would.
 

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  • HouseFloorPlan (Large).JPG
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The living room is off on an "L" which complicates things a little but the principal is the same. Before poking holes, next fall take a simple table fan and place in in the dining area, on the floor, pointed toward the stove room. Run it on low speed. You will notice quite a difference in about 30 minutes. The living room will be cooler and the kitchen/dining area will warm up.
 
What BG said.

That's a hard layout to heat.
 
+1 on what begreen & Dix said.
Definitely try the fan first.
 
I'm in a 1380 ft ranch. We use two box fans on the floor far from the stove room
blowing (breezing on low) towards the stove room which has the ceiling fan on.
Mixes stuff up perfectly. Perfect meaning that the LR is 80 degrees, hall in the 70's,
and mid 60's in the bedrooms for some great sleeping temps. Great balance of warm
and no cold areas unless the kids leave their doors closed. Something they learned not
to do overnight in February. LOL
 
Before installing anything permanently into the wall I would play around with the fans to see what works best. Many find moving cool air toward the stove room works best while others do better moving heated air toward cooler rooms.
 
CheapBassTurd said:
I'm in a 1380 ft ranch. We use two box fans on the floor far from the stove room
blowing (breezing on low) towards the stove room which has the ceiling fan on.
Mixes stuff up perfectly. Perfect meaning that the LR is 80 degrees, hall in the 70's,
and mid 60's in the bedrooms for some great sleeping temps. Great balance of warm
and no cold areas unless the kids leave their doors closed. Something they learned not
to do overnight in February. LOL
Click to expand...

I have a ranch as well. I have tried the fan in the hallway pushing the cooler air to the warm living room. The hallway temp registers about 64. I have only seen the temp in the hallway raise about 2 degrees. I have put a fan in the living room as well and use the ceiling fan in the dining room. It doesn't warm the hallway enough.
 
deborita3 said:
I have a ranch as well. I have tried the fan in the hallway pushing the cooler air to the warm living room. The hallway temp registers about 64. I have only seen the temp in the hallway raise about 2 degrees. I have put a fan in the living room as well and use the ceiling fan in the dining room. It doesn't warm the hallway enough.
Click to expand...

Is your ceiling fan on "down", Deb?
 
That switch in the "down" position, pushes the warm air down, helping in creating a thermal loop.

In summer, reverse, and pull the cold air up.
 
Dix said:
That switch in the "down" position, pushes the warm air down, helping in creating a thermal loop.

In summer, reverse, and pull the cold air up.
Click to expand...
Normally I would do just the opposite Dix. Air blowing down will feel cooler even though it may be warm due to the wind chill effect on skin. This feels great in summer but drafty in the winter. With the fan blowing upward in winter the warm air will descend on the outer walls helping them feel warmer while keeping the room draft free. YMMV.

Ceiling-fans_h.jpg
 
begreen said:
Normally I would do just the opposite Dix. Air blowing down will feel cooler even though it may be warm due to the wind chill effect on skin. This feels great in summer but drafty in the winter. With the fan blowing upward in winter the warm air will descend on the outer walls helping them feel warmer while keeping the room draft free. YMMV.

View attachment 232935
Click to expand...

Welp, I just reversed every one of 'em.... we'll see ;)
 
Dix said:
Welp, I just reversed every one of 'em.... we'll see ;)
Click to expand...
Now run around neked and see if you notice the difference. Murph certainly will. ;lol
 
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I would just move the stove to the dining room :)
 
begreen said:
There are many threads here on this topic. No one solution works for all situations. It depends on the floorplan, doorway and wall openings and ceiling height. In general an effective way to move the heat is to push air down low, from the cooler parts of the house, into the stove room. In some cases this can be as simple as placing a small fan on the floor in an adjacent room and blowing cooler air into the room. Do a search on "Moving heat" in this forum and many threads should come up. If you can post a sketch of the floorplan we can make some more suggestions.
Click to expand...


That's what works for me! I use a box fan in the hallway to blow cool air into the room with a stove. The warm air near the ceiling naturally flows back to the bedrooms and such.

That works adequately, except when I trip over it in the hallway at night....

Not a perfect solution. The perfect solution is central heating, which does a TERRIFIC job, but is too easy for me.
 
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begreen said:
Now run around neked and see if you notice the difference. Murph certainly will. ;lol
Click to expand...

I stand corrected.

And Murphy & Sam could care less :p
 
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Dix said:
I stand corrected.

And Murphy & Sam could care less :p
Click to expand...
More comfortable/even temps with it running in reverse? The dogs won't be interested unless there is a rat or squirrel on the fan.
 
begreen said:
Normally I would do just the opposite Dix. Air blowing down will feel cooler even though it may be warm due to the wind chill effect on skin. This feels great in summer but drafty in the winter. With the fan blowing upward in winter the warm air will descend on the outer walls helping them feel warmer while keeping the room draft free. YMMV.

View attachment 232935
Click to expand...

Mine is down, takes that hot air and blows it down, feels like a hair dryer if I put it on high, people are taking off coats and such (which is nice :) ), like i SAID you gotta experiment with it to see what you get. I dunno about the science behind it, but if I take the IR gun to it everything and everyone is definitely warmer.
 
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