Floor vent to move hot air upstairs

[commguy35]

Is there anything I can do to install a floor duct from first floor to second and make it meet the fire code? I see people mention vent registers with fire dampers that will close if there's a fire. If so, any ideas what I need to buy? I haven't been lucky in my searches.

I'm willing to hire a contractor to do the job right but what kind of contractor would I look for? Hvac or Carpenter?

 

[begreen]

Speak to the local fire marshal or building inspector and ask what the ruling is for the area. Ask if adding fusible link dampers to the vents makes them compliant. Bring a printout of the product so that they are making a call on a specific item.

The 12AH is a common rectangular fire damper used for this purpose.

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[mellow]

Old thread of mine on what I did: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/inline-duct-fan-to-heat-upstairs.150139/#post-2014629

Notice the 10 feet away as that is code in most places.

 

[kennyp2339]

Old thread of mine on what I did: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/inline-duct-fan-to-heat-upstairs.150139/#post-2014629

Notice the 10 feet away as that is code in most places.

10ft is mechanical return air vents from a solid fuel burning appliance.
Generally speaking, if the stove is in an open room say living room and you want to heat above then you can add a vent without a fire code violation, as long as the vent is not into another closed room above ie: bedroom, so say living room to above common hallway is fine, bedrooms have doors for a reason and those door are actually designed to be closed all the time per fire code.
Another example would be the stove is in a finished basement, there's an open stairway from the kitchen / dining area / great room to the basement, you can install a vent from the basement into the kitchen, dining, living room area no problem, but you could not install a vent from the basement into the office room or guest bedroom on the main floor since they have doors that can isolate the room.

 

[stoveliker]

Also in my experience the heat rising thru a vent is not really much.

So I added an inline fan.
And I instead push air sucked from the living room floor and deposit it onto the basement floor (stove is in the basement). That helps the convection up the stairs.

 

[begreen]

Most floor vents are either too small or there are not enough of them to supply the volume of air needed to supply sufficient warmed air to the floor above.

 

[kennyp2339]

2 things, if you have a basement install with a fairly open basement and main living floor you should look into cold air returns, basically it’s a min 16” x 16” hole grate that has a 18” boot into the basement ceiling to channel cold air, cold dense air leaves the main floor via sinking, naturally gets replaced by warm air in the basement via open stair well.
I also added a booster fan from my basement to the kitchen / dinning room, 80 cfm fan, works like a charm, reality is a smaller 60 cfm fan would accomplish the same thing