using fans in the house

"Hot air rises" ..........that leaves a pocket where the hot air was, that is filled by the cold air, until eventually the preponderance of air is warm..........

I just concentrate on getting the hot air circulating throughout the house, and let the cold air do what it wants. If I can assist the hot air by fans (or need to) I do that. My forced hot air furnace fan works WONDERFULLY for balancing out the temps in the house (all three levels).

I originally bought the EcoFan for the top of the stove because I was told that there tends to be cold air that pockets BEHIND the wood stove, and the EcoFan pulls it up and over the stove to eliminate that pocket of cold air. Don't know the validity of that, and certainly the EcoFan is not strong enough to push much heat around in the room, but ..........the dang thing does its job I guess.

-Soupy1957

JamiePNW78 said:

I've seen it written on here many times that fans work best when they blow the cold, low air towards a stove. I've been going with that plan but the problem with it is becoming more noticeable as the temps drop.
I get home from work at 10:30pm and I have hardwood floors. With the hall fan on the floor blowing towards the stove, it means I have cold air blowing at me in the living room.
I changed it up tonight and moved the fan to blow warm air down the hall towards the bedrooms.

Click to expand...

I have all hardwood and tile in my house too. I have the box fan on LOW, in one of the doorways of the stove room. It works well for me. I don't have it pointed right at the stove either. In the furthest area of the house you can actually feel the warm air which is really amazing because it is so far away from the stove room.
You might want to experiment and put the fan a lil further away maybe right before the doorway of the room....and make sure it is on low...you don't need it any higher, trust me I have experimented.

BeGreen was the one who told me to put the fan blowing air from the cold room into the stove room, he said you can even put it somewhere in the hallway/room that is the colder one. It's all trial and error but I think you will find the right placement and get good results.

Also try a lower fan setting or a smaller fan.

Sounds like OP's complaint is that it was working really well! (And if the fan that is now blowing warm air is on the floor, not the ceiling, isn't it blowing the coldest air...that which is near the floor?)

soupy1957 said:

I just concentrate on getting the hot air circulating throughout the house, and let the cold air do what it wants.

Click to expand...

And I just concentrate on getting the cold air circulating throughout the house, and let the hot air do what it wants!

I have two fans: one blows cool floor air at the stove (which sits in a fireplace) to push the hot air out of the stove area. The other I will put in a doorway, blowing cool floor air into the stove room (which pulls cool air from other rooms). If I am in the stove room, and don't like the draft, I simply shut the fan off for a while.

JamiePNW78 said:

I've seen it written on here many times that fans work best when they blow the cold, low air towards a stove. I've been going with that plan but the problem with it is becoming more noticeable as the temps drop.
I get home from work at 10:30pm and I have hardwood floors. With the hall fan on the floor blowing towards the stove, it means I have cold air blowing at me in the living room.
I changed it up tonight and moved the fan to blow warm air down the hall towards the bedrooms.

Click to expand...

I am going to change the oil in my car later. I will take the filler cap off and wait till it drains up through the engine. It may take a while.

Dune said:

JamiePNW78 said:

I've seen it written on here many times that fans work best when they blow the cold, low air towards a stove. I've been going with that plan but the problem with it is becoming more noticeable as the temps drop.
I get home from work at 10:30pm and I have hardwood floors. With the hall fan on the floor blowing towards the stove, it means I have cold air blowing at me in the living room.
I changed it up tonight and moved the fan to blow warm air down the hall towards the bedrooms.

Click to expand...

I am going to change the oil in my car later. I will take the filler cap off and wait till it drains up through the engine. It may take a while.

Click to expand...

And, of course, the price of eggs in Chicago will also have a bearing on this..... Or, it is a horse of a different color.

Backwoods Savage said:

Dune said:

JamiePNW78 said:

I've seen it written on here many times that fans work best when they blow the cold, low air towards a stove. I've been going with that plan but the problem with it is becoming more noticeable as the temps drop.
I get home from work at 10:30pm and I have hardwood floors. With the hall fan on the floor blowing towards the stove, it means I have cold air blowing at me in the living room.
I changed it up tonight and moved the fan to blow warm air down the hall towards the bedrooms.

Click to expand...

I am going to change the oil in my car later. I will take the filler cap off and wait till it drains up through the engine. It may take a while.

Click to expand...

And, of course, the price of eggs in Chicago will also have a bearing on this..... Or, it is a horse of a different color.

Click to expand...

met·a·phor   /ˈmɛtəˌfɔr, -fər/ Show Spelled[met-uh-fawr, -fer] Show IPAnoun 1.a figure of speech in whicha term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as in “A mighty fortress is our God.†Compare mixed metaphor, simile(def. 1).
2.something used, or regarded as being used, to represent something else; emblem; symbol.

Hey Dune. It still had some effect on the price of eggs in Chicago? Maybe.

I have gotten into this discussian before. Blowing the cold air works. Blowing the hot air doesn't.
I live in a 65 foot long ranch. I played it both ways for years before I hooked the stove into my radiator system.
I was hoping to cut to the chase with an example.
I get frustrated with the argument.
I hope I didn't ruffle any feathers, I was just trying to show the insanity of the asumption that blowing the heat towards the cold represents to me.

Pen, you must have edited your post. There was nothing sarcastic in the post at all. There is a difference between sarcasm and a bit of poking fun.

pen said:

Do what keeps you warm.

The idea of pushing the cold air comes from the fact that it's denser and will be more apt to move the less dense hot air.

pen

Click to expand...

And the fact that it's at floor level where the fan is. Blowing the cooler floor air into the stove room works best for me. I also have a long ranch house.

Everyone is a scientist. We all can make a data sheet and write down a few time and temperature numbers for our experiments. Then we know what works for our circumstances.

Armed with hints from this site and basic physics, I keep fooling around until I find out what works for me. I tried two fans and multiple locations. Finally I discovered a location where one fan moves warm air into three bedrooms. I am not sure how it works, but I suspect the flow of air along the floor in the passageway draws cool air from the bedrooms using the venturi effect. No matter. Simple notes regarding temperatures of the stove room and the three bedrooms versus time give me the information needed for a decision. Takes time for the loops to get going, but work great.

To modify overheating the room the stove is in, I tried moving heat down into the basement. Took some different arrangements, but finally one setup works. Only raises the basement about four degrees, but the idea was to cool off the upstairs a little without opening windows. Before this, I didn't think moving heat down a stairwell was worth a try. Now I know.

When I'm sitting near the stove and the cool air from the back of the cabin is blowing on me, I just tell myself how happy I am that the system is working. I think how much warmer the bathroom will be when I need to transact important business.

We tried the fan on a chair routine until my wife bought a little fan that was meant for the top corner of a bedroom door at the opposite end of the house from the stove and that makes a bigger difference than 2 big fans.

JamiePNW78 said:

Blowing the cold air might be more efficient, but I don't know if it's worth the cold feel in the living room.

Click to expand...

On occasion, the stove room is so damn hot that the cool draft feels good. Seldom in January, though.

Matches work good too. Light one and blow it out. Watch the smoke trail.