Easy way to follow your heat flow through the house between doorways

Good idea. I used a tissue taped to the trim hanging down. I also went a bit nuts and placed thermometers in multiple rooms. I did this when I was trying out different/best location of my floor fans and speed. I found moving the fans a couple of feet closer/farther from intended room to heat had different affects.

I used to do with with a balloon.

I use the "yank the door open to fast and follow the smoke around the house" method.

It's something I check regularly.

That's my story..

You could cut some cheese in the hearth room and then follow your nose.

Tangent: Recently I have noticed that unless the entire house has been heated (i.e. really using the oil furnace to get it to temp, then the stove to maintain or slow the decline), that i have a MASSIVE flow of cold air going towards the stove. It's like a 5mph breeze of air 10 degrees cooler than the ambient at 5 foot above floor level. And this is like 10-15 feet from the stove. I do have fans on creating a strong momentum in the air too, but I was startled that I was laying on my couch getting goosebumps 10-15 feet from a 550 degree stove with the blower on high....because all the cold air was in-line with how I was laying

I once had a neat experiment going, by accident, with a helium balloon that had lost most of its helium. For about half a day it became "neutrally bouyant". That means it was effectively weightless. It would drift around the house on whatever current it happened to get caught in. It would invariably end up cycling in a slow vortex in a corner somewhere. But it was a great natural experiment for testing drafts, while it lasted.

The consistent smoke plume from a lit incense stick will clearly show airflow no matter how subtle. This is a good way to find drafts or air leaks too.

Walking around the house naked might also prove to show you where the drafts are. Just be sure you close your window curtains first...

Rich M said:

The consistent smoke plume from a lit incense stick will clearly show airflow no matter how subtle. This is a good way to find drafts or air leaks too.

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+1 Very easy and sensitive.

Nice thread. I was just checking this out the other day using a Kestral 3000 (hand held anemometer/temp/humidity instrument). I started out checking temps at various spots in the house,but in the entry way to the living room(with the insert), I used the anemometer to measure the flow at the top and bottom. I could actually move the instrument up or down slowly enough to find the point at which the wind speed went to zero and the direction changed.Very cool!

joefrompa said:

Tangent: Recently I have noticed that unless the entire house has been heated (i.e. really using the oil furnace to get it to temp, then the stove to maintain or slow the decline), that i have a MASSIVE flow of cold air going towards the stove. It's like a 5mph breeze of air 10 degrees cooler than the ambient at 5 foot above floor level. And this is like 10-15 feet from the stove. I do have fans on creating a strong momentum in the air too, but I was startled that I was laying on my couch getting goosebumps 10-15 feet from a 550 degree stove with the blower on high....because all the cold air was in-line with how I was laying

Click to expand...

I am experiencing the same exact thing. I generally burn nights and weekends, so its tough to get the entire downstairs warm enough. Seems like I have to burn 12-14 hours or more to get the heat circulated as far as I need it to go. The cool breeze generally lasts quite awhile even though the stove room gets to about 74* sometimes higher.

I am new to all of this and am still figuring out how to move the warm air around my traditional closed style floor plan. I only have one doorway out of my stove room thats about 32" wide. I recently purchased a corner fan that attaches to the top of the doorway. I have that blowing the warm air out. At the same time I have a small floor fan blowing cool air into the room. It seems to work better than having a single fan. I run the floor fan sporadically until the adjacent room gets up to a comfortable temperature. Then I just leave the doorway fan running and this has been working for me thus far.

I have been hesitant to turn the furnace on for the distant rooms to get them up to temperature. I'm trying to experiment with the stove to see how much of my home I can really heat with my new toy.

joefrompa said:

Tangent: Recently I have noticed that unless the entire house has been heated (i.e. really using the oil furnace to get it to temp, then the stove to maintain or slow the decline), that i have a MASSIVE flow of cold air going towards the stove. It's like a 5mph breeze of air 10 degrees cooler than the ambient at 5 foot above floor level. And this is like 10-15 feet from the stove. I do have fans on creating a strong momentum in the air too, but I was startled that I was laying on my couch getting goosebumps 10-15 feet from a 550 degree stove with the blower on high....because all the cold air was in-line with how I was laying

Click to expand...

For years I had the same thing, a major cold breeze whistling into the wood stove room. We replaced 1/2 the windows in the house this past Summer, and the breeze is almost gone! My wife and I were just commenting on this today. It seemed like all of the drafts from those old leaky windows were combining and moving towards the stove - other rooms were cold but not so breezy. When the oil furnace ran, the house temp was more even and we did not notice the drafts. The proof of how leaky those windows was when we tried sealing them with plastic sheets and tape - but they kept blowing into the house. I plan to measure the temps near the new windows and near some old windows, but I have to wait for Christmas to open my new IR gun that my wife got me :-/

I notice this in my shop.. If I dont run the stove for a couple of days, and it gets into the high 40's air temp inside the garage (under 20F outside) and then run the stove, its a definite cool breeze being sucked to the stove... Whats interesting about this, is that both my overhead doors are very well insulated, and face East... The single man door adjacent to the overhead doors is also very well insulated, and the back door, which faces west, exits into a large unheated shed... that door is also very well insulated... the walls ar of concrete block and the natural gas furnace vents are sealed off..... Add to that a totally open floor plan with the exception of 3 distinct isles the 'wals' of the isles are shelving and stuff... but a definite cold breeze moving TO the stove...

The air flow is 2 basic issues:

1. The heat from the stove will create a cycle of cold air falling. Especially present in multi floor homes. In my situation, the stove is in the basement. I leave the door to the basemeent open as the only means of transferring heat to the living space. If you stand in that door way, you will feel hot air coming up the stairs, hitting your upper body, and feel cold air heading down the stairs at your feet. Just normal hot/cold principles.

2. Unless you are feeding your stove with outside air, it is drawing air up the stovepipe. Whatever goes up and out must come in somewhere. Regardless of how tight you may think your house is, the stove will create a negative pressure in the house which will be satisfied with external air. This is very prevelant with fire places. My parents house is newer construction, and nicely built. They run the fireplace and it cools the house! The fireplace exhuast is replaced with air that is pulled down through a ceiling vent for attic fans. That cold air penetrates the house and the fireplace can't offset it. They resolved the bulk of the problem by sealing the vent nad leaving a window cracked open in the basement. The cold air stays down there and eventually warms up before it affects the house temp.

Rich M said:

The consistent smoke plume from a lit incense stick will clearly show airflow no matter how subtle. This is a good way to find drafts or air leaks too.

Click to expand...

And here I thought incense was only used to mask the odor of college students smoking marijuana.

Backwoods Savage said:

Walking around the house naked might also prove to show you where the drafts are. Just be sure you close your window curtains first...

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Yeah . . . my wife is always yelling at me to put some clothes on or close the curtains . . . I suppose I could tell her that I'm simply checking for drafts.

I use a piece of thin thread, about 8" long.