circulating the heat

Conventional wisdom says that moving cold air from low (near the floor) in a distant part of the house, into the room where the stove is located, is more effective at distributing the heat than blowing heated air out of the stove room. The convection created causes heated air to replace the cool air being removed by the fan. Makes sense, too. But a lot depends on the configuration of the spaces involved. In your case, however, if you've already got this opening way up high in the wall, then your plan might work OK, but the warm air you move past that wall is already going to be up high where it wants to be (lower density), so you may not get much mixing of air up there, it may just stratify. You might just get yourself a cheap box fan of some sort and jury-rig it up there temporarily to test the effectiveness of your idea. If it works to your satisfaction, then make a nice quiet permanent installation of some sort with a higher quality fan. If it doesn't work, then put the registers back in and use the box fan on the floor to test the other method in your application. Rick

Wondering about that myself. little difference however, this is a 4 level split with the insert on the bottom level. Can only say that it might work if ya manage to burn 24/7-- not sure myself, have to wait till this winter to find out.?? I do know that if ya cant keep the heat going, then you need a boost from something else.. Unless you can keep that thing running day and nite.

I would try the fan in both directions and see which direction works best. With the hot air by the ceiling, it may work better blowing the warm air towards the upper rooms.

In general, I believe moving the cold air is better and more efficient. In some cases, moving the warm air is better. I have a split level and have the wood stove in the family room, the lowest level besides the step down to the garage. The cold air naturally comes down the stairs and the warm air moves up and across the ceiling and up the stairs. After playing with fans, I got the best results with a small doorway fan (75 cfm) blowing the warm air up - and you can feel the cold rush down along the stairs.

Your situation sounds like you already have warm air migrating and collecting up high, so why not just move that air a bit further along. I would experiment but believe that moving the air through that vent is a good option.

While we are on the subject I'm in a similar situation. I have a rancher with addition so the home is two levels. Main lever rather rectangular relatively narrow versus length. The stove is in the basement on one end. My plan was to cut a hole with a vent above the stove and perhaps a few other below some bedroom at that end using floor vent fans to further draw the heat up. One the other end of the basement I was going to cut another vent to draw cold air from the other side of the house. I believe the hot air rising on one end and cold air flowing down to the basement should create a circular movement of air drawing the warm air up and forward through the relatively narrow length of the house and then cooling car going down at far end. Does this seem like a decent plan to anyone.

Idget

I understood skinny to say that the hole is already there. What I pictured in my mind from his description was a vent through a wall above the opening into the upstairs hallway. If that's the situation, then there's not a fire wall up there. Maybe I misunderstood. Rick