Moving warm air

yooperdave · Jan 15, 2011

~*~Kathleen~*~ said:
NH_Wood said:

Yes - I think we are all in favor of the snowbunny avatar...... :lol:

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Quit yer bitchin' or you'll get this

http://tv.ign.com/tv/image/article/772/772104/simpsons-Selma_1173714136.jpg

now that is funny! someday i'll be able to put an avatar together!

don't know why you would feel cold air coming up from your floor registers and air return. shouldn't have to block them off. do you uncover them every day while the furnace is running? i'm thinking that the woodstove is drawing combustion air through any available means...that is why you feel cold air coming from the registers/grills. if you are planning to insulate/remodel this coming summer (or so) i would shy away from using the spray foam to seal up any drafts for now. just tuff it out for another few weeks or so. once that stuff is applied, it is a real bear to remove. why would you have to remove it?? in case you are replacing windows, trim, re-insulating. the place i bought was supposed to be insulated..??right. when i removed some bad siding, i found what i thought was a empty cavity with no insulation. well, one complete wall had no insulation at all. with all new windows, doors and exterior fresh paint and the interior walls removed to install insulation, not only is it warmer and less drafty but also a lot quieter. this did take 2 summers but what i'm getting at is i'm glad i didn't run into any of the spray foam to complicate matters.

if you have any goodwill stores in your area, check them out for used stuff. i picked up a ceiling fan with a light for $3. a lady of your capabilities would have no trouble connecting it. habitat for humanity also has what they call "re-stores" where you can purchase discounted or used items...pretty much anything...even building supplies. cabinets, flooring, furniture, materials...you get the idea.

everyone has the right idea about fans moving air around...low speed. as the air is moved across the heat source slower, it has more time to pick up heat.

goodluck wit everything. see you at the hearth.com summer picnic.

goo

NH_Wood · Jan 15, 2011

~*~Kathleen~*~ said:
NH_Wood said:

K - just read your sig - Huxley quote - you have been reading evolutionary bio indeed - bringing out the bulldog! Cheers!

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Only you Jacques, would recognize that.

Are you in the field this summer? Would love to bring the boy on a tag along to a real bat cave when we are in New England if that's possible.

K - yes, I'll be doing field work this summer, but not sure how much in NH - I've been doing a lot of consulting work (mistnetting bats) in WV, PA, NY, MD, etc., etc. Most of our mine surveys are winter only - I rarely get to our mines in the summer. BUT, if you are in the area, send a PM and I'll take you and your son netting for bats at my study site - just north of Keene, NH. My wife and kids like to net bats, so we could have a netting/cookout adventure! Cheers!

Lighting Up · Jan 15, 2011

~*~Kathleen~*~ said:
unfortunateLEE said:

Great stuff and caulk may be your best and most inexpensive answer for a drafty house. It should be done prior to insulation anyway.

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Plus that stuff is pretty fun! Okay will get some more of that done.

One of my problems is that I'm not home all day so I have the furnace set as a back up. I have most of the furnace vents covered, but have to leave a couple uncovered. This, plus the return air vents let so much cold air up from the crawl space the rest of the time.

I don't have a ceiling fan in my living room. If I knew how to put one in I would also get rid of the stooopid recessed light. I might tackle that this summer when I have more time to play with electricity.

How could I possibly put a fan behind the stove? The cheap plastic jobbies I have would melt.

You can't cover your cold air vents if you do the cold air has no were to go...
md

Mrs. Krabappel · Jan 15, 2011

NH_Wood said:
My wife and kids like to net bats, so we could have a netting/cookout adventure! Cheers!

Sounds fun-I've netted birds plenty of times, but never bats. Well, except when they get in the house.

Mrs. Krabappel · Jan 15, 2011

Explain why I want to caulk/seal openings to the outside, but not openings to my crawl space which is not entirely different from being outside.

cptoneleg · Jan 15, 2011

~*~Kathleen~*~ said:
NH_Wood said:

My wife and kids like to net bats, so we could have a netting/cookout adventure! Cheers!

Click to expand...

Sounds fun-I've netted birds plenty of times, but never bats. Well, except when they get in the house.

Yea I bet them fresh netted bats are mighty tasty roasted over an open fire.

BrotherBart · Jan 15, 2011

Kath just do what I did when the blower in the back of the 30 inside the fireplace crapped out a week ago. I had some of these little four inch personal fans I picked up one year on closeout at Target. I put one on each side of the stove just outside the legs and angled them under the stove toward the center of the back of the fireplace. Lot quieter than the blower was and the heat just rolls out of that fireplace.

BrowningBAR · Jan 15, 2011

~*~Kathleen~*~ said:
Plus that stuff is pretty fun! Okay will get some more of that done.

The Great Stuff is great, but getting it on your skin and clothing is a pain in the ass.

~*~Kathleen~*~ said:
How could I possibly put a fan behind the stove? The cheap plastic jobbies I have would melt.

I have a fan behind the Intrepid and one behind the Vigilant. I have extensively monitored the temps of the fans and neither of them have had a surface temp over 110 degrees. I run both stoves quite hot at times and neither fan has gotten to a temp that has raised my eyebrows as of yet (second season doing this). Still, when I leave the house or go to bed, the fans are removed and unplugged.

For me, have the fans behind the stove circulates the heat far better than have fans point towards the stove.

BrowningBAR · Jan 15, 2011

~*~Kathleen~*~ said:
NH_Wood said:

K - just read your sig - Huxley quote - you have been reading evolutionary bio indeed - bringing out the bulldog! Cheers!

Click to expand...

Only you Jacques, would recognize that.

Are you in the field this summer? Would love to bring the boy on a tag along to a real bat cave when we are in New England if that's possible.

Carbon_Liberator said:

Here's a basic diagram of the house showing the flow.

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Oh, most excellent!

Heem said:

I've got the same stove. This house is 200 years old so drafty is an UNDERSTATEMENT. I still manage to see 83 degrees in this room,

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I am not getting those temps. Not even close.

The first year I had the vigilant I couldn't get the stove room over 75. On really cold days I could only keep it at 70. With the fan I can get the stove room up to 80 easily and if I run it hard I can get the stove room up to 90 even on the coldest days.

I'm in a 270 year old, drafty, stone farmhouse.

BrowningBAR · Jan 15, 2011

BrotherBart said:
Kath just do what I did when the blower in the back of the 30 inside the fireplace crapped out a week ago. I had some of these little four inch personal fans I picked up one year on closeout at Target. I put one on each side of the stove just outside the legs and angled them under the stove toward the center of the back of the fireplace. Lot quieter than the blower was and the heat just rolls out of that fireplace.

I have something like that behind the Vigilant and the Intrepid. The difference is remarkable.

Heem · Jan 15, 2011

BrowningBAR said:
I'm in a 270 year old, drafty, stone farmhouse.

Wow, 1740's! That beats me handily. Love it. One of my favorite things to do is when I learn historical facts, to compare them to my houses age. It's fun to think that for 50 years my house sat here and nobody ate a sandwich - because they hadnt been invented yet!

BrowningBAR · Jan 15, 2011

Heem said:
BrowningBAR said:

I'm in a 270 year old, drafty, stone farmhouse.

Click to expand...

Wow, 1740's! That beats me handily. Love it. One of my favorite things to do is when I learn historical facts, to compare them to my houses age. It's fun to think that for 50 years my house sat here and nobody ate a sandwich - because they hadnt been invented yet!

This house reminds me nearly daily how incapable we have become to live in a period in which my home was originally built. Especially during the winter.

yooperdave · Jan 15, 2011

~*~Kathleen~*~ said:
Explain why I want to caulk/seal openings to the outside, but not openings to my crawl space which is not entirely different from being outside.

sealing the crawl space during the winter is ok but for the rest of the year, you want air circulation throughout the crawl space. when we say "sealing" we should be talking about "closing up" the crawl space. i wouldn't use anything permanent, but only something that can be easily removed or re-opened. some of the block foundations have open-able/close-able vents mortared right into them in place of a block (same size-8x16). that way, you are guaranteed the air circulation when you need it (summer) and able to close them during the winter when you need to keep things from freezing. if you inhibit or prevent air circulation during the summer, you will end up with rotting eventually.

yooperdave · Jan 16, 2011

~*~Kathleen~*~ said:
Explain why I want to caulk/seal openings to the outside, but not openings to my crawl space which is not entirely different from being outside.

what a dummy i am...as i was watching the playoffs, i realized that you were talking about caulk/sealing the crawl space openings from the inside of the house, right? i thought you meant from the outside.
i don't know why you would feel that much cold air coming up from the supply and return airs. that is why i said you may be drawing in combustion air through them.
you shouldn't seal them off or shut them down since you still rely on the furnace to heat during the hours you are absent. by shutting down some of the supply air registers, you are allowing more heat to build up in the trunklines and eventually the plenum of the furnace which in turn could cause the furnace to "trip out" on high temperature limit. this would reset and you may not even notice that it happened because the blower motor would keep blowing the warm air through any of the registers you have open. but it would cause undue stress on the life of the heat exchanger of the furnace. this all dnds on how many of the supply air registers you have closed and how many are left open and how large is the furnace (btu).
the return air is also a poor idea toover or block. restricted air flow can result in an overheated blower motor which could shorten the motor life and also "trip out" on thermal overload. this you would notice as the blower motor would just quit running. this also re-sets itself when it cools enough...until the motor is fried.
remember you have water and sewer lines in the crawl space that should be kept from freezing. what little heat loss you would have from the warm air in the ductwork helps defeat this freezing. i am assuming that your trunklines are in the crawlspace. is your furnace down there also??? when was the last time the air filter on the furnace was changed? monthly, i hope.

i hope i was a help. get that fan hooked up by the woodstove and move some air around. keep warm.

snowleopard · Jan 16, 2011

My vote goes for the chicken.

Could you describe the layout of your house?

Mrs. Krabappel · Jan 16, 2011

Thanks Dave. That's really helpful information. What I could understand of it anyway, since I don't speak HVAC-ese.

snowleopard said:
Could you describe the layout of your house?

Very basic old timey cabin design. rectangle. one long half is a great room (living/dining). The other long half is 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, smaller part of kitchen. There's a poorly built add on part to the kitchen.

But really, I'm not even that worried about most of the house. I would like the thermostat that sits about 10' from the stove to register higher than 65F when it is 25F outside. This will keep our major living area warm, plus the boys room which is on the opposite side of that wall.

I'm still not getting that, though I tried a lot of different fan angles yesterday.

JustWood · Jan 16, 2011

Have you ever looked in the crawl space?
MayB yur ductwork is uninsulated or exposed to the cold air of the crawlspace.

Pilgrimfarm · Jan 16, 2011

A few things....Great stuff is only great when it is in a crack. I got some on my hands last summer when I sealed around my range hood pipe. Major headache, it was falling down and i was pushing it back up with a putty knife and I ended up with it all over my hands to save it from getting on other things. The can says that it "Cleans up with acetone", big fat LIE. I had it on my hands for a week and looked like I had a major skin issue, nothing took it off. I sanded, cut, gas, kero, soaked in everything, it just took a week for the dirty nasty stuff to wear off. On the foundation vents.. the new move is going towards sealed crawled spaces, something to look into if you are going that far with your remodel. Some new construction they are coating the entire crawlspace walls and floors with spray foam. All moisture and air penetration is sealed, no radon either. Any up to code work in NC will require you to cover the ground under your house with plastic, I had to do my old house a few years ago. Some recent thoughts in letting warm humid air pass under your house if you are cooling it in summer is, warm humid air hitting wood that is cool dry and conditioned= condensation, mold and rot.

Mrs. Krabappel · Jan 16, 2011

frequentLEE said:
Have you ever looked in the crawl space?
MayB yur ductwork is uninsulated or exposed to the cold air of the crawlspace.

:lol: Are there people who don't look their crawl space? Of course I have crawled in my crawl space. I just send the sheepdog in first to alert for copperheads.

My ductwork is not insulated

Pilgrimfarm said:
Any up to code work in NC will require you to cover the ground under your house with plastic, I had to do my old house a few years ago.

This is done

mikerowe81 · Jan 16, 2011

I was looking online at a doorway fan, but didn't want to fork out the cash. So, I had a couple of those double-blade window fans and using a couple bungee cords I tied them up to the top of the doorway sucking the air from the hot room to the cool room.

My wife thinks it looks a little redneckish but it works pretty well, you can really feel the warm air coming through the fan. I'm thinking about getting a duct fan and tying into a couple of my existing ceiling vents to suck air from above the stove and blow it into our back bedroom which will hopefully create a circulation of air in the house.

snowleopard · Jan 16, 2011

mikerowe81 said:
My wife thinks it looks a little redneckish . . .

you say that like it's a bad thing . . .

Okay, Kathleen, I think I'm getting the picture. When you say the stove is almost flush with the masonry fireplace, do you mean the face of the stove is flush, or the back?

I'm not ignoring your original question, just trying to get a picture in my mind of what you've got there.

begreen · Jan 16, 2011

~*~Kathleen~*~ said:
frequentLEE said:

Have you ever looked in the crawl space?
MayB yur ductwork is uninsulated or exposed to the cold air of the crawlspace.

Click to expand...

:lol: Are there people who don't look their crawl space? Of course I have crawled in my crawl space. I just send the sheepdog in first to alert for copperheads.

My ductwork is not insulated, but the house heats easily with the furnace.

Pilgrimfarm said:

Any up to code work in NC will require you to cover the ground under your house with plastic, I had to do my old house a few years ago.

Click to expand...

This is done

Good to hear that you got the flue working on the furnace. I think I mentioned this earlier in the DIY forum. Uninsulated ductwork is definitely part of the problem and partially why there's cold air coming from the ducts. Unfortunately, without a proper foundation that keeps vermin (including snakes) out, insulating there is a lost cause. Rodents will just rip it off for nesting.

Be careful blocking off registers and vents. This can cause the fan to run to fast (race) which can lead to premature failure and more expense.

WhitePine · Jan 16, 2011

~*~Kathleen~*~ said:
unfortunateLEE said:

One of my problems is that I'm not home all day so I have the furnace set as a back up. I have most of the furnace vents covered, but have to leave a couple uncovered. This, plus the return air vents let so much cold air up from the crawl space the rest of the time.

Click to expand...

Are your running your furnace with some vents covered? If you are, you may be over pressurizing your (probably leaky) old ducts, driving warm air into an unconditioned space. If that happens, the furnace will depressurize your house and draw outside make up air in through the cracks. It's a great way to waste heat. In general, you can only close off a small percentage of your vents before you start to have problems.

I don't have a ceiling fan in my living room. If I knew how to put one in I would also get rid of the stooopid recessed light. I might tackle that this summer when I have more time to play with electricity.

Click to expand...

Ceiling fans really help to circulate through the home. Someone asked whether they should blow up or down. It's up in winter, down in summer.

In the summer, the fan's breeze blowing across a person's skin provides a measure of evaporative cooling. The fans cool people, not rooms.

In winter, the fans help prevent stratification of the air, hot air lingering near the ceiling, while the floor level air cools. The upward air stream displaces the hot ceiling air, forcing it down toward the floor, usually along the walls. An air circulation pattern sets up and the room temperature evens out. Low speed works fine. Higher speeds may move the air too fast causing evaporative cooling, even though the air isn't blowing directly onto people.

BTW, some "authoritative" sources get all this wrong, claiming that fans should blow down in winter and up in summer. One of our local HVAC contractors even has that on his web site. Whenever I come across his ad, I always wonder how much business he loses when potential customers see that.

Mrs. Krabappel · Jan 16, 2011

BeGreen said:
Good to hear that you got the flue working on the furnace. I think I mentioned this earlier in the DIY forum. Uninsulated ductwork is definitely part of the problem and partially why there's cold air coming from the ducts. Unfortunately, without a proper foundation that keeps vermin (including snakes) out, insulating there is a lost cause. Rodents will just rip it off for nesting.

Be careful blocking off registers and vents. This can cause the fan to run to fast (race) which can lead to premature failure and more expense.

Ah, what can I say about the furnace. I've had it checked out, it functions, and I can live with the status quo for now. I don't want to think about it beyond that. It gives me a headache (figuratively !!!

Not C-O) I don't want to improve on the system I have. I want a new system. Santa didn't put that in my stocking this year.

Good to know about the vents. I get the point about the ducts now. I'm a little slow on the uptake.

It's quite possible that the crawl space could be sealed of from the exterior with a small bit of work. I did put insulation between the crawl space and the rest of the house.

begreen · Jan 16, 2011

I hear you and agree. It took me 12 years of saving and planning before I finally could address the same issues. In the meantime, you've got to do, what you need to do.

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