Circulation Help With Insert

[num1hitter]

Hello guys, I've got question and need some advice. I currently have a quadra fire 4100i insert. I have only one complaint about the glass getting dirty but thats not what I am interested in now. I have a 1700 sq bi-level house. So the layout is far from ideal when it comes to circulating the significant amount of heat produced by the insert. It has a variable speed blower w/ thermostat. It heats the room it is in on the first floor extremely well but the heat takes a long time to make up to the second floor. The stairway is through a door and then opens to the top floor. I was thinking about putting a floor vent to allow some more heat to rise to the second floor but I wanted to get some input about other options before I started cutting holes in the floor. How do you circulate the heat more efficiently? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot.

 

[begreen]

For more even heat in the house blow the cooler air toward the heat. Put a table or box fan at the top of the stairs, placed on the floor, pointing toward the woodstove. Run it on low speed. It will blow the cooler air down, toward the woodstove. The denser cool air will be replaced with lighter warm air from the stove room.The stove room will cool down and the heat will head upstairs where you want it.

If the glass is getting black it could be that the fire is not being run hot enough or that the wood is not fully seasoned.

 

[num1hitter]

Thanks for the suggestion. I will definitely try it out. As for the glass, it is very possible that some of the wood is not completely seasoned.

 

[etiger2007]

Seasoned wood is a must if you want to get the most heat out of your fuel/insert

 

[dave_376]

Not trying to hijack the thread but I have a similar situation and thought that keeping the info in the same thread might be helpful. I have a box fan on the floor tilting/angled blowing cold air down the stairs. It has made an incredible difference but I don't like the fact that its in the way on top of the stairs. I was thinking about a small ceiling fan mounted in the top of the staircase. Do you it will have similar results? I don't want to cut register vents in the floors if I can avoid it.

 

[velvetfoot]

I replaced a light over the stairwell with a ceiling fan but the jury's still out on its effectiveness. I tried it some this spring but I didn't notice much difference. I'll try it some this winter too, maybe, when it gets colder. The stairway is pretty open. Thing is, the air doesn't really have anywhere to go once it's up there-I imagine it gets blown up by the fan and hits the close-walls and goes back. Maybe it's just disrupting the stratified flows up and down the stairway. However, the new,. bigger insert is seems to be making a difference in how warm the upstairs gets.