Anyone using one of these room to room fans

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Chargerman

Feeling the Heat
Oct 22, 2009
369
SW Wisconsin
The masterbath in our bedroom is rather cold with no good way to get heat from the stove room. When it gets really cold I put an electric heater in there for getting ready in the morning. My BIL mentioned these and I was wondering how they are. I have another room that shares a wall with the bath that is always warm becasue it is right off the stove room. It sure would be nice to wake up to a warm bath instead of shivering. They basically use one of the wall stud cavities and brings warm air from the ceiling into the other room.

http://www.tjernlund.com/newproducts.htm#AireShareâ„¢_Room-to-Room_Ventilators
 
There are many, many posts on the Hearth website: don't try to blow hot air down, move the cold air along the floor or down the stairs and the warm air will replace it. Read some of the other threads for a fuller understanding.
 
I have read many threads on this. This is a ranch style house and their are no stairs or different levels to deal with. The cold room is too cold while the other room is too hot. They are right next to one another so this seemed to be an option where nothing else will really work.
 
Chargerman said:
I have read many threads on this. This is a ranch style house and their are no stairs or different levels to deal with. The cold room is too cold while the other room is too hot. They are right next to one another so this seemed to be an option where nothing else will really work.

All the more reason to get a small box fan and blow the cold air out of the cold room. The air will be replaced by the warm air right next door.
 
shawneyboy said:
Chargerman said:
I have read many threads on this. This is a ranch style house and their are no stairs or different levels to deal with. The cold room is too cold while t
he other room is too hot. They are right next to one another
so this seemed to be an option where nothing else will really work.

All the more reason to get a small box fan and blow the cold air out of the cold room. The air will be replaced by the warm air right next door.

That's the problem, the bathroom is isolated and on an outside wall. The only access is from our bedroom and that is not nearly as warm as the other room. Maybe I need to draw a diagram. I have a fan already going in the main hall back to the stove room and it works fine. That doesn't work well for this room as I already tried it.

I could see reversing this kind of fan by blowing cold into the warm room and drawing from the warm room at the same time. It would have to be two separate vents with a fan in the bottom one that don't use the wall cavity.
 
I can completely understand your situation. We have a 2500 sqft ranch as well and our master bed/bath is tucked furthest away from the stove. I've tried fans, etc and it helps slightly, but our stove room/living room/kitchen/other bedrooms sit at 22-24 degrees, while our master sits at 10-13 degrees. I wanted to install a room to room fan, but unfortunately, we have oak paneling on the only wall where it would work and I really don't want to cut through that.

I've thought about running some sort of ductwork through our crawl space as well, but haven't tried that approach yet and really don't know if it would even work.
 
Chargerman

I have thr same set up as you. The master bathroom is at the opposite side of the house. I have one of these through wall fans. While it doesn't make the bathroom super warm, it does make it about 67 degrees while the rest of the house is 73. I would do it again I am into my third year with the fan. When it is -20 out I might use an electric heater.
 
Regardless of layout, IF you are going to use a fan, blow the dense cold air at floor level toward the warmer area. Trying to blow less dense warm air at ceiling level just doesn't work as well. If you want an in-wall fan, install it at floor level, blowing toward the warmer area, not at the ceiling.

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/83926/
 
In anticipation of our son coming for Thanksgiving, we bought an air purifier (he has asthma). We've been having problems with the stove blower, so it got turned off.
The purifier is on the floor in the living room blowing cool floor level air into the stove room and for once the back bedroom (master) is staying warmer by about 3-5 degrees. The house is an L shaped ranch with the stove in the toe of the L. The house is about 50' long.
We'll see what the colder weather brings, but so far, it's working better than the blower and cleaning the air to boot. Win Win. :coolsmile:
 
This is a layout of the trouble area.
 

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Have you also tried sitting an even smaller fan in the doorway of the bath?
 
Backwoods Savage said:
Have you also tried sitting an even smaller fan in the doorway of the bath?

I did try that for a while without much effect. Our bedroom is comfortable for sleeping but not nearly as warm as the other bathroom. I want to keep my son's bedroom in the corner warm too so I hate to add more cold air to the hallway. My wife tripped over the fan at night several times so I took it out for the little gain it gave. Both of the baths have electric heated tile floors so that is part of the reason why the other one gets quite warm. The master bath floor never shuts off and it still doesn't keep up when it gets really cold. Plus it sucks electricity. It would really get cold in there without the floor. Before remodeling and changing the layout of the bathrooms there was a door joining the two bathrooms and an electric wall heater. The door was just dumb and made both bathrooms awkward. I can now see why they had the heater. I insulated the outside wall and the ceilings at the time of remodel.

I really don't see many other options. Adding the fan might not be optimal but another 5 degrees would help a lot and lower the temp in the other bath as well.
 
When living back east I was a manuf rep in the P&H/HVAC industry. I also did some hearth lines. Tjernlund was one of the companies I represented, so my bias is noted. That said, I have precisely yhe same issue as you and will be installing an Aireshare in my own home to heat a bathroom and laundry room. They have been very effective in their intended use, are American made by a company that understands air flow.

Understand that if you pump air into a room you have to provide a means for the air to exit that space to return providing circulation. You can short cut the door or provide another opening. If you want to provide heating, put the fan high on the wall and blow air out at floor level. It is rated at 75cfm. Typically, you will use an interior petition and interior petitions TYPICALLY will not have horizontal blocking. Look before you leap! you will not be disappointed with an Aireshare. You get what you pay for
 
I can definately see you benefiting from one of these fans. The area you are trying to heat just seems tough to do with just natural convection alone. My problem with this is where to place the fan.

My suggestion would be to mount on the wall in the MBath use the wall cavity and suck the warm from the other bath. This would create almost a loop effect. You would be sucking the hot air off the ceiling coming down the hallway, thru the first bath into the master bath, this would pressurize the master bath and force the hot air out into your master bedroom and back down to the fan blowing the cold air down the hallway. This could only be accomplished with all the doors in the rooms opened.

This is the only way I can see to effectively use this fan with minimal demo/construction. If it were my house, it is what I would do.

This is only my opinion however.

Also, as mentioned, check to make sure the wall cavity you are going to use in open all the way from floor to ceiling. This can be done bydrilling a small hole at the bottom of the cavity and running a fishtape up through the wall. try it several times so you are not mistaking a screw/nail etc for a cross brace. It took me several times before I could get it to go all the way up.
 
Thanks for the advice.

I think the way the fan is designed to work is by sucking the warm air our of the room at ceiling height and then blowing it down the cavity to the diffuser. I don't think they are designed to do the reverse which would mount the fan low and then pull from the diffuser up high. The effect should be the same in my mind.

mrfjsf: I think you are right in that this fan in addition to my hall fan should create a loop of sorts to allow better circulation with the door open to the bath. I built the wall between the two bathrooms and don't remember crossbraces being put in. There is a plumbing soilpipe vent going horizontally and then up a cavity somewhere in there though. I will have to check that out further. There is a forced air duct and small opening under the door to prevent completely pressuring the master bath with the door closed.
 
Chargerman said:
Thanks for the advice.

I think the way the fan is designed to work is by sucking the warm air our of the room at ceiling height and then blowing it down the cavity to the diffuser. I don't think they are designed to do the reverse which would mount the fan low and then pull from the diffuser up high. The effect should be the same in my mind.

mrfjsf: I think you are right in that this fan in addition to my hall fan should create a loop of sorts to allow better circulation with the door open to the bath. I built the wall between the two bathrooms and don't remember crossbraces being put in. There is a plumbing soilpipe vent going horizontally and then up a cavity somewhere in there though. I will have to check that out further. There is a forced air duct and small opening under the door to prevent completely pressuring the master bath with the door closed.

Either way, as long as you are drawing from the top and blowing out the bottom into the master bath, it will work. I do HVAC for a living and while im no expert in psycrometrics and air flow/patterns, I have a good understanding of it....I can't see any reason why this theory wouldnt work.

Im fighting airflow right now in my own house with trying to get the warm air out of the hearthroom and up the stairs which you would think would be an easy task especially since the stairs are in the room next to the stove, but it just doesnt want to flow well for some reason. Im looking into incorporating a fan that goes between the floor joists and into my master BR to help get that hot air up and cold air back down. I just have to find a way to land power to it...I have nothing close by.

Hope this works for you, let me know the results if you do it.
 
%-P I use 2 bath fans 50 cf both on floor level. One is in the back of the house and one is next to stove. They are run threw 3 inch dryer duct under the floor in an unfinished basement works good for 15 yeas wired to run both or rear or front on manual or snap disk auto. cost about $ 75 for the set up. The duct is about 60 feet long uninsulated See Avitar for the front fan assembly.
 
Would it be possible to install one of those fans at ground level at the end of the hall where you have the fan labeled? Don't know if that would work but it seems like it would draw air out of the entire bedroom and bath.
 
I use a ThruWall:

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ7ml/h_d2/Navigation?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

mounted high to move hot air out of the stove room (somewhat isolated) and a small floor fan on the floor moving cold air back down the hall to the stove room creating a very effective loop & heating the rest of the house within a couple of degrees of the stove room. Without either fan the loop is incomplete and I cannot effectively heat the bulk of the house. I believe the loop you are proposing would help your bath and potentially your MBR as well.
 
mrfjsf said:
Chargerman said:
Thanks for the advice.

I think the way the fan is designed to work is by sucking the warm air our of the room at ceiling height and then blowing it down the cavity to the diffuser. I don't think they are designed to do the reverse which would mount the fan low and then pull from the diffuser up high. The effect should be the same in my mind.

mrfjsf: I think you are right in that this fan in addition to my hall fan should create a loop of sorts to allow better circulation with the door open to the bath. I built the wall between the two bathrooms and don't remember crossbraces being put in. There is a plumbing soilpipe vent going horizontally and then up a cavity somewhere in there though. I will have to check that out further. There is a forced air duct and small opening under the door to prevent completely pressuring the master bath with the door closed.

Either way, as long as you are drawing from the top and blowing out the bottom into the master bath, it will work. I do HVAC for a living and while im no expert in psycrometrics and air flow/patterns, I have a good understanding of it....I can't see any reason why this theory wouldnt work.

Im fighting airflow right now in my own house with trying to get the warm air out of the hearthroom and up the stairs which you would think would be an easy task especially since the stairs are in the room next to the stove, but it just doesnt want to flow well for some reason. Im looking into incorporating a fan that goes between the floor joists and into my master BR to help get that hot air up and cold air back down. I just have to find a way to land power to it...I have nothing close by.

Hope this works for you, let me know the results if you do it.

There are two Airshares. One floor to floor and one room to room. In your case, trying to move the air upstairs, pick the area you most want warmed and blow the air out of that room, at its perimeter and down into the stove room. You are then creating a convective loop where the air will travel and disperse upstairs. Being on a perimeter wall you can draw the air across the room and also pick up power from a receptacle in the wall. We have used a lot of these and fan position on the room to room units is dependent upon whether you are are looking to heat or cool. Have used them with a lot of mini-splits and Rinnai's to get that extra bit of air movement.
 
All things do not work for everyone, I have tried this blowing cool air to stove. I have a big stove room/kitchen/living/ dining area 700 sq ft. down the hall are two bedrooms. Probably 600 sq.ft.
The bedrooms stay nice and toasty in the coldest of wheather with fan behind stove blowing down the hall to bedrooms. This is the way we have done it at this house fo 25 yrs.

Two years ago when I read here about a different better way, the dog, cat and wife were mad at me, it simply did not work. I kept telling the wife give it time, she finally said why not put the fan back behind the stove and warm the bedrooms up tn 30min.

All is happy and warm now.
 
cptoneleg,
In my mind, what you are doing is the same as installing a fan specifically made for the wood stove or insert in some cases. You're just doing it with a box fan (or whatever type of fan you use). I can't see how it couldn't work. I do agree though that blowing cool air into the stove room does work well. I have a small corner fan mounted high in the doorway blowing out of the stove room and a small fan on the floor blowing cool air into the stove room. The small floor fan helps greatly to bring the heat out of the stove room creating an air flow pattern that works. My problem is trying to get the heat to the rest of the house. Right now the stove is only heating about 1/3 of the house. I would like to bring that up to at least 1/2.

Once I get my thru-wall fan installed, I am hoping that more hot air will be pushed to other parts of the house. If that doen's work out well enough, I may invest in the aireshare mentioned above.
 
Yes just saying it does't work for all houses, it probably work better on newer houses than mine. And I hope you get your problem solved as thats what we all want to do is heat more with our wood and less with our $s.

Good Luck
 
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