Ceiling fan or blower or both (updated)

[They Call Me Pete]

Stove is crankin' and wife says house isn't as warm as she thought it would be. I told her give it a day or so but she thinks we should've gotten a bigger stove. My reply was " don't believe everything your read ". Our house is 1300 sq ft and stove literature says it will heat that plus more but I don't know what scenario/factors they use. If I've got to add the blower I'll need to jack up the stove a little which I'm hoping it'll push the stove pipe up if I do. Which it should. I told her we should install ceiling fan and see what happens. My house is all open and room stove is in reads 70, next room over 67 and kitchen 66. I'm happy because furnace hasn't kicked on but once today. Women are they EVER really happy.
Oh yeah, my stove is an "insert" without out panels to block off space around stove. Will that make a difference ? I don't think so but I'm a newb to inserts. You can see pics in my other thread"well she's finally going"

 

[Corey]

A blower on the stove will turn it from a room warmer to a whole house heater. A ceiling fan will do little more than stir up the air in one room and keep it from getting to the rest of the house. Unless you have a big vaulted ceiling in the stove room, it will do little good.

 

[pgmr]

As a test, you could aim a box fan at the insert to blow some of the heat out of the fireplace area. Do you have a plate blocking the fireplace flue?

 

[They Call Me Pete]

No plate blocking flue just top plate on chimney per stove store but I get conflicting answer's on questions. It depends on which monkey picks up the phone to which answer you get and they are never consistent. I'm not happy with them at all and will never buy a stove from them again

 

[hfjeff]

Add a ceiling fan and blower and you will see a huge difference.

 

[chad3]

I just talked the wife into putting a fan in the widow between the "sun room with stove" and the kitchen. We have a doorway in that same wall. This is at one side of a Cape. The heat that now comes back into the kitchen (re: rest of the house) is much greater than it was before. Now to get the overnight burn down without having stove temps going over 750.
Chad

 

[begreen]

A blower will help the stove circulate a lot more heat. It's not a problem to run it without the decorative panels.

Is the stove connected to an interior or exterior chimney? Without a blockoff plate, a lot of the heat off the top of that stove is heading up to warm up all the masonry of the chimney. If it's an exterior chimney, the stove is losing a lot of heat that could and should stay indoors.

 

[They Call Me Pete]

Exterior chimney. I talked to the stove shop about this and all they said was the top plate is all you need. They just didn't get what I was talking about. I said that's at the TOP of the chimney and I don't need to heat my chimney. It's just par for the course with this place. I'm so mad I'd like to stuff the salesmen in the %$^$*& stove . I should've talked more to you folks in the beginning but found the site a little to late. Thanks for the input. I new I could count on REAL WORLD wood burners and not a salesmen. I guess I'll be going to get the blower and as for the ceiling fan I have one in a room that's not used so it won't cost me anything to install. That room needs one anyway for the summer.

 

[begreen]

The stove shop may have been just trying to keep the bid low to be competitive. You need an insulated block off plate. It will make a nice difference in heat output. Seems like a PITA, but it will be worth it.

 

[JimWalshin845]

Do you have vaulted ceilings in this Cape?

 

[DriftWood]

Read the EPA Card from your stove this will give you a different idea about a appliances out put in BTUs. Condition of the insulation and air tightness in your home are very big factors in heating any home. I would use a block off plate, a blower and a ceiling fan they will get heat to the whole home.

 

[bokehman]

I have a thermometer in the same room as the insert away from direct heat and about 3 feet above the floor. Switching on the ceiling fan picks up about 5C/9F (noticeable instantly), with fan pumping upwards. Regular ceilings, not vaulted.

 

[Jimbob]

I'd go with a ceiling fan first for a few reasons.
Cheaper to buy.
Quieter.
Uses less power (check tags on each one).
Ceiling fan can be used in summer to help room feel cooler.

 

[shaggymatt]

I'd go with a ceiling fan first for a few reasons.
Uses less power (check tags on each one).

Just a footnote on that... I was curious as to how much power the blower on my Osburn uses to make sure I had enough power with my small Honda EU1000i generator (all I cared about was the blower, a couple lights and my fridge). I hooked it up to the Kill-A-Watt, and was shocked that it uses 30 watts on low, and 66 watts on high. This is far less than I actually thought it would be.

 

[Highbeam]

Look for energy star ceiling fans. My newer one from the HD is labeled as consuming 6 watts on low and that's where it runs continuously through the winter doing a fine job of quietly mixing the air up.

 

[shaggymatt]

Wow. Time for me to go ceiling fan shopping to replace all of my older units! That is nothing!

 

[harmerd]

Get the ceiling fans first. I have one in the family room with the stove. FR and Kitchen are one addition, each room 22 x 16, a seperating wall, with open cathedral across both. If I use the fan on medium FR is 75 and Kit is 73ish......but the best part is the heat rolls along the ceiling warming the LR to 68. The ceiling fan can make it rather warm though. I also noticed that the walls were warm with the fan pulling air up.

 

[They Call Me Pete]

I already have the ceiling fan. I'm taking it from an unused room and picking up the blower tomorrow or next day along with the block off plate. If you put your hand up within 12" of ceiling it's nice and toasty. So I think between blower and ceiling fan it'll be a big difference. I thought I could get away without the blower but as usual I'm wrong. Thanks for the replies

 

[JimWalshin845]

Ceiling fans and small fans work OK... BUT... if you really want to move air you need something more like this (banging head on computer desk).

We have ceiling fans and have used many different configurations of other fans, but this works fabulous as per getting the heat towards the other rooms. Also, it is better than a ceiling fan because it is closer to the cool air on the floor that you want to mix with the warm air that is on the ceiling. This one is 27" and 3 speeds, it ain't pretty but our lack of oil bills are! :coolgrin:

 

[They Call Me Pete]

Well ceiling fan is in and running. Side the stove is on is 71 and other half of house is 66. I'm still thinking of the blower but want to run fan for a couple of days. The blower will get the heat closer to fan to circulate it better. Wife is happy(finally) with the way it's working but stills wants the blower.

 

[begreen]

Time to get that block off plate installed. Then do like Pook says. It may surprise you how well it can work.

 

[JimWalshin845]

Try blowing the cold air from the coldest room toward the heat source ideally at floor level. Cold air is denser & more air will move. The warm air will rush to the location above the floorfan.

Doesn't work.. you have to move the warm air to other parts of the room(s)... been there... done that... waste of fans and electrcity.

BTW.. cold air is lighter.. ask any pilot?

 

[begreen]

Sorry, cold air is denser than warm air.
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/edu/DLESE/BRF/air/BRFDense.html

And blowing the cold air towards the warm stove does work. Tried and true, even in our own house. When we were in the low 20's our kitchen area was getting cold. Near the start of the kitchen, I put a box fan set on low speed on the floor, pointing towards the stove. In about an hour there was a 4 degree rise in temp in the kitchen. Done properly, one creates a thermal loop supplying cold air low to be replaced by lighter warm air.

 

[JimWalshin845]

Sorry, cold air is denser than warm air.
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/edu/DLESE/BRF/air/BRFDense.html

And blowing the cold air towards the warm stove does work. Tried and true, even in our own house. When we were in the low 20's our kitchen area was getting cold. Near the start of the kitchen, I put a box fan set on low speed on the floor, pointing towards the stove. In about an hour there was a 4 degree rise in temp in the kitchen. Done properly, one creates a thermal loop supplying cold air low to be replaced by lighter warm air.

Grrrrr.. the Prof has never been in a airplane.

I 'sorta agree' as per the cold air.. getting it to the warm air. But here is the difference we found with much experimentation.. like your friend at Columbia (I remember the '68 revolution there).

Step 1: You have to get the cold air off the floor to heat a room fully. A fan closer to the floor pointed directly at the ceiling with a high volumn will do that much more efficiently than a ceiling fan. OK... main room heated and your stove is making that room too comfy.

Step 2: Point the fan to the adjoining room to move the heat over your stove to push that hot air where you need it. Don't point the fan directly at the stove, it will cut the efficiency down. We found that placing the High volumn fan near the stove and in the corner works the best. It creates a circular motion within the house. We heat about 2500sf of LR, DR, Kit, FR and we keep the BR hot with no fans at all. :coolgrin:

Addit/Edit.... OK.. for baseball fans.. does a baseball go farther in cold weather or hot and sticky weather?

 

[dtabor]

Well, my pilot friend said that warm air was lighter, thus it rises. When we were in a glider, we looked for parking lots and a local car junkyard as the heat from those was rising at such a rate that we'd hit that area and you could feel the glider jump up to gain a little extra flight time.

Anyway, back to the real issue, I have a ceiling fan in the stove room and had it in reverse but it seems that the rooms warm faster when that is off?? If you are over by the wall you can actually feel the air coming down on you as it heads for the floor so I know the circulation is happening but it is cool, not warm?? I think a big problem with my setup here is that I live in a log cabin with beams that are perpendicular to the stove, so the air is pulled up by the fan and then channelled between two of the beams and back to the floor so it never really "circulates" around the room? Does that sound feasible?

D