I am trying to equalize the temp throughout house...any help?

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cbuchanan87

New Member
Dec 16, 2009
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tip o' the mitt
I just installed my Englander 25-pdv in my basement and it works great. If i burn it hot enough it keeps the upstairs quite comfortable bu the basement is really hot. if i turn it down it still heats the upstairs but is a little bit cooler. is there any way to get the warm air to go throughout the house through the duct system?

I have thought about cutting a large vent in the main duct just abouve the stove and putting some registers with little fans in them in each of the rooms, esssentially sucking the hot air from the basement to each room. Or possibly purchasing a blower and somehow installing it just above the stove and connecting it to the duct to create some positive pressure flow throughout the house.

Has anyone done either of these? Of are there other ways of circulating the warm air to somewhat equalize the temp throughout the house?

Thanks in advance.
 
yes the best way would be a vent for it to come up through near the stove and a return with a fan at the far end of the house blowing the cold air into the basement using the heat to work for you.
 
You can use the furnace ducting for sure. Most furnaces can run in on demand or constant. You should have a cold air return downstairs. If its in the room your stove is in it will draw the heat through the furnace
I have dampered my cold air returns upstairs down a bit and made a larger opening in my basement return, which is almost directly over my stove so it works well at distributing the heat throughout the house
 
a friend of mine has his wood stove in the basement, he leaves the cellar door open and has four small fans blowing down to the basement, one in each corner of the house.
 
ResOps said:
You can use the furnace ducting for sure. Most furnaces can run in on demand or constant. You should have a cold air return downstairs. If its in the room your stove is in it will draw the heat through the furnace
I have dampered my cold air returns upstairs down a bit and made a larger opening in my basement return, which is almost directly over my stove so it works well at distributing the heat throughout the house
Click to expand...

Tried this and within 5 minutes had sucked all of the warm air that the stove produced into the duct work. Problem became that by the time the warm air reached the length of the ducts, it had cooled noticably. Pellet stove was not producing heat anywhere near the rate that the furnace fan was pulling it out. Comes down to either slowing the furnace fan down or having it kick on for say 5 minutes and off for 10. Before I get into playing around with the furnace fan I am going to try a small electric fan in the opening I cut in the cold air duct and reduce the velocity of the warm air I am trying to remove so that it cools less quicky, and not run the furnace fan at all.
 
rottiman said:
Tried this and within 5 minutes had sucked all of the warm air that the stove produced into the duct work. Problem became that by the time the warm air reached the length of the ducts, it had cooled noticably. Pellet stove was not producing heat anywhere near the rate that the furnace fan was pulling it out. Comes down to either slowing the furnace fan down or having it kick on for say 5 minutes and off for 10. Before I get into playing around with the furnace fan I am going to try a small electric fan in the opening I cut in the cold air duct and reduce the velocity of the warm air I am trying to remove so that it cools less quicky, and not run the furnace fan at all.
Click to expand...

Are the ducts in the warm basement? If so, I'm surprised they lost all the heat. Did you try placing a thermometer at the registers to see exactly what temperature was exiting? If it is elevated, then less airflow might allow your stove to keep up. Slower moving air will be more susceptible to cooling in the ducts though. Tough predicament.

I'm pushing heated air from my living room (stove room). The goal is 70°F in the house so I have distribution fans turn on when the living room reaches 74°F. Once the fans are on the living room seems to rise another 2°F at most (stove set to Medium) so I'm basically heating the remainder of the house with 76°F air from the living room. The thermostat for the stove is one room over in the kitchen. Once it hits 70°F it shuts down the stove but the distribution fans continue to push warm air out of the living room until it drops below 74°F.

Because the living room does rise an extra 2°F when the fans are on I'm sure I can push additional heat from the room. Even more if I turn the stove up to High. I'll be ducting soon to experiment with just how much heat I can push from the living room. Theory is the more heat I can get out of the room, the less time the fans and stove need to run.
 
sweetsncheese said:
rottiman said:
Tried this and within 5 minutes had sucked all of the warm air that the stove produced into the duct work. Problem became that by the time the warm air reached the length of the ducts, it had cooled noticably. Pellet stove was not producing heat anywhere near the rate that the furnace fan was pulling it out. Comes down to either slowing the furnace fan down or having it kick on for say 5 minutes and off for 10. Before I get into playing around with the furnace fan I am going to try a small electric fan in the opening I cut in the cold air duct and reduce the velocity of the warm air I am trying to remove so that it cools less quicky, and not run the furnace fan at all.
Click to expand...

Are the ducts in the warm basement? If so, I'm surprised they lost all the heat. Did you try placing a thermometer at the registers to see exactly what temperature was exiting? If it is elevated, then less airflow might allow your stove to keep up. Slower moving air will be more susceptible to cooling in the ducts though. Tough predicament.

I'm pushing heated air from my living room (stove room). The goal is 70°F in the house so I have distribution fans turn on when the living room reaches 74°F. Once the fans are on the living room seems to rise another 2°F at most (stove set to Medium) so I'm basically heating the remainder of the house with 76°F air from the living room. The thermostat for the stove is one room over in the kitchen. Once it hits 70°F it shuts down the stove but the distribution fans continue to push warm air out of the living room until it drops below 74°F.

Because the living room does rise an extra 2°F when the fans are on I'm sure I can push additional heat from the room. Even more if I turn the stove up to High. I'll be ducting soon to experiment with just how much heat I can push from the living room. Theory is the more heat I can get out of the room, the less time the fans and stove need to run.
Click to expand...


Temp of air entering the cold air duct cut-out is 83 degrees. Same air exiting ducts in rooms throughout thehouse is now 68 degrees after 5 minutes of running. After 10 minutes continous running of furnace fan the room where the stove is located drops from 76 degrees to 67 degrees. Furnace fan is pushing way too much volume and the stove cannot replenish the warm air quick enough. Note this entire operation is taking place on a single floor bungalow style home of 1900 sq ft.
 
rottiman said:
sweetsncheese said:
rottiman said:
Tried this and within 5 minutes had sucked all of the warm air that the stove produced into the duct work. Problem became that by the time the warm air reached the length of the ducts, it had cooled noticably. Pellet stove was not producing heat anywhere near the rate that the furnace fan was pulling it out. Comes down to either slowing the furnace fan down or having it kick on for say 5 minutes and off for 10. Before I get into playing around with the furnace fan I am going to try a small electric fan in the opening I cut in the cold air duct and reduce the velocity of the warm air I am trying to remove so that it cools less quicky, and not run the furnace fan at all.
Click to expand...

Are the ducts in the warm basement? If so, I'm surprised they lost all the heat. Did you try placing a thermometer at the registers to see exactly what temperature was exiting? If it is elevated, then less airflow might allow your stove to keep up. Slower moving air will be more susceptible to cooling in the ducts though. Tough predicament.

I'm pushing heated air from my living room (stove room). The goal is 70°F in the house so I have distribution fans turn on when the living room reaches 74°F. Once the fans are on the living room seems to rise another 2°F at most (stove set to Medium) so I'm basically heating the remainder of the house with 76°F air from the living room. The thermostat for the stove is one room over in the kitchen. Once it hits 70°F it shuts down the stove but the distribution fans continue to push warm air out of the living room until it drops below 74°F.

Because the living room does rise an extra 2°F when the fans are on I'm sure I can push additional heat from the room. Even more if I turn the stove up to High. I'll be ducting soon to experiment with just how much heat I can push from the living room. Theory is the more heat I can get out of the room, the less time the fans and stove need to run.
Click to expand...


Temp of air entering the cold air duct cut-out is 83 degrees. Same air exiting ducts in rooms throughout thehouse is now 68 degrees after 5 minutes of running. After 10 minutes continous running of furnace fan the room where the stove is located drops from 76 degrees to 67 degrees. Furnace fan is pushing way too much volume and the stove cannot replenish the warm air quick enough. Note this entire operation is taking place on a single floor bungalow style home of 1900 sq ft.
Click to expand...

My stove is in the center of my recroom downstairs and I have a run of duct the length of the room (at the ceiling) starting at the stove. The end of the duct is grilled as well as 2 portions upstream. With the room at 70F at stat height the ceiling space is 20 degrees (on average) warmer.
With my furnace fan running 7/24 the recroom remains 70 and the discharge upstairs hovers around 70 - 75 at the furthest run.
Once you have the whole house heated at a relatively constant temp its good throughout. I also run two of my supplies in the basement. I have never had the room the stove is in get 'cold'.
This is my second winter running this method in northern Ontario and it works for me.
You won't see furnace type discharge from your supply vents but again, if your house is insulated half decent and you get to temp you should be able to maintain it. My house is a 1000sg ft per floor (X2) as an example.
 
rottiman said:
Temp of air entering the cold air duct cut-out is 83 degrees. Same air exiting ducts in rooms throughout thehouse is now 68 degrees after 5 minutes of running. After 10 minutes continous running of furnace fan the room where the stove is located drops from 76 degrees to 67 degrees. Furnace fan is pushing way too much volume and the stove cannot replenish the warm air quick enough. Note this entire operation is taking place on a single floor bungalow style home of 1900 sq ft.
Click to expand...

You can't slow the furnace fan but you may be able to block or redirect a bunch of the airflow elsewhere to try out your low volume idea. Not long term but temporarily to see just how much air you can pull from the stove room without dropping the temperature faster than your stove can recover. Just a thought ... but be careful not to damage your furnace fan in the process.
 
sweetsncheese said:
rottiman said:
Temp of air entering the cold air duct cut-out is 83 degrees. Same air exiting ducts in rooms throughout thehouse is now 68 degrees after 5 minutes of running. After 10 minutes continous running of furnace fan the room where the stove is located drops from 76 degrees to 67 degrees. Furnace fan is pushing way too much volume and the stove cannot replenish the warm air quick enough. Note this entire operation is taking place on a single floor bungalow style home of 1900 sq ft.
Click to expand...

You can't slow the furnace fan but you may be able to block or redirect a bunch of the airflow elsewhere to try out your low volume idea. Not long term but temporarily to see just how much air you can pull from the stove room without dropping the temperature faster than your stove can recover. Just a thought ... but be careful not to damage your furnace fan in the process.
Click to expand...

Most furnace fans are two speed.New furnaces now come with variable speed fan motors for efficiency
The first thing to do is check if your motor is a 2 speed, which will tell you on the nameplate. Then - if it is you need to determine which speed it runs at. Unless your qualified to do so(and comfortable) a visit from a contractor is the safest bet.

Where are the other cold air returns located in your house? By adding the extra grills in my return in the recroom I pull approximately 80 of my return from this room leaving only 1 return open upstairs in the main hallway. As I mentioned I also keep a supply open in the recroom for mixing.
 
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