Hi forum. First post. To the moderators, thank you in advance for having this site.
Onto my question.
I bought a clydesdale last year for my downstairs fireplace and noticed how much heat is lost into the fireplace cavity it sits in. I had an idea. I pulled the unit out as much as the play in the chimney would allow and set up a shopvac near it and rigged it to suck right above the ball looking collar and routed the exhaust to blow this hot air to the upstairs livingroom. It worked great in concept. I had nearly 200 degree air blowing out of the exhaust. it raised the temp in my livingroom by at least 5 degrees. naturally, not a permanent solution (would quickly burn out my motor not to mention ugly) but it proved a point.
I then set out to try and get this lost heat into my central ventilation system. The goal, to heat an upstairs bedroom on the opposite side of the house. This is where I am at a loss. I did another test. I rigged a 6" tube duct to a 600 cfm fan and tapped this into the central ventilation system to try and route hot air into the vent system. i dont get a single degree of heat coming out of even the hearest upstairs vent.
My next thought was to build an insulated box around the back of the unit to in effect capture all this heat and connect this to a vent that sits right above the fireplace. this is where the 600 cfm fan would be connected to create negative air pressure. Return air would be routed to blow right over that collar to balance the system. In effect, ambient air blows onto that colar, is heated as it swirls around in the insulated box, then is sucked up by the fan and distributed to the whole house via the central ducting system.
Before I got to all this expense, will it even work?
Any hvac engineers here? What physics am I up against?
Thank you for your time!
Onto my question.
I bought a clydesdale last year for my downstairs fireplace and noticed how much heat is lost into the fireplace cavity it sits in. I had an idea. I pulled the unit out as much as the play in the chimney would allow and set up a shopvac near it and rigged it to suck right above the ball looking collar and routed the exhaust to blow this hot air to the upstairs livingroom. It worked great in concept. I had nearly 200 degree air blowing out of the exhaust. it raised the temp in my livingroom by at least 5 degrees. naturally, not a permanent solution (would quickly burn out my motor not to mention ugly) but it proved a point.
I then set out to try and get this lost heat into my central ventilation system. The goal, to heat an upstairs bedroom on the opposite side of the house. This is where I am at a loss. I did another test. I rigged a 6" tube duct to a 600 cfm fan and tapped this into the central ventilation system to try and route hot air into the vent system. i dont get a single degree of heat coming out of even the hearest upstairs vent.
My next thought was to build an insulated box around the back of the unit to in effect capture all this heat and connect this to a vent that sits right above the fireplace. this is where the 600 cfm fan would be connected to create negative air pressure. Return air would be routed to blow right over that collar to balance the system. In effect, ambient air blows onto that colar, is heated as it swirls around in the insulated box, then is sucked up by the fan and distributed to the whole house via the central ducting system.
Before I got to all this expense, will it even work?
Any hvac engineers here? What physics am I up against?
Thank you for your time!