Gravity and/or Heat Vent Between Floors...

[LJ4174]

Just wondering if anyone uses these... I'm thinking I'm going to need 2.

I would like a damper between the vents to turn it off or on, obviously. Anyone have any idea where to purchase them, etc.

Thanks...

LJ

 

[edthedawg]

I recently installed a vent from the living room up to our bedroom. It's approx 12 feet from the stove to the vent, just in the next room, and it's a very open floorplan. Went to Home Depot and got a pair of black 12x4 floor vents and a 12x8 white ceiling grate. Locate the joists w/ a magnet, mark and cut the t&g;floorboards, and then the ceiling (from above), while Woodstove Wife held a plastic bin up to the ceiling to catch debris. I took some scrap poplar boards (you could easily use new pine) and cut/fit them to fill the gaps between the joists. I nailed them using my little Porter Cable finish nailer, but you could easily drill/screw into place. The grates just screw down or up using their stock hardware, and they all have manual dampers on them. It's not hard to do but you definitely want 2 people, and you have to carefully locate them to align and optimize the upstairs and downstairs positioning.

She's not thrilled with the look of the modern grate in the middle of the living room ceiling, and i'm not thrilled with the amount of heat coming up, tho it is noticeably improved in the room. Luckily a friend bought and renovated a massive 1800's school building, and is going to get me a handful of antique cast iron 12x18 grates, so I'm planning to strip, paint, and install those w/ a larger hole. Hopefully dampers are included or else I'll just have to Make Something.

 

[MarcM]

Floor grates often have to be quite big to make a noticeable difference. The heat will not be felt immediately, as the convective transfer from the stove is often not enough to drive a current through 15 ft of cold air. You'll probably have to wait until the walls and objects in the room the stove is in are warmed radiatively and begin to drive convective currents before you feel a noticeable beneft.

I'd also caution the installation of them in sleeping areas especially, since they do pose a fire risk. Make sure the room the stove is in has a working smoke detector as well as the room adjoined by the grate. CO as well. Also be aware that you lose the compartmentalization between the two rooms, which is often the best and only line of defense in a residential structure against fire spread. Most people accept that if they're home, a smoke detector will alert them, and if the house is empty, it will probably burn down anyway... but unless your house is well out of view, I'd never discount the possibility of a passerby or neighbor seeing the fire, in which case, it's still very beneficial to make it as hard as possible for fire to spread in your home.

 

[LJ4174]

Cool, thanks for the replies...

Our Master Bedroom is right over the room where we will have the stove. Our room and master bathroom, and my daughter's room is chilly. I'm hoping to have my stove installed within the next week or 2, currently burning oil. I'm going to see how it goes before I start cutting holes, but from talking to people this may have to happen...

I would like to get more "fancier" grates... Cast or cast looking...

 

[edthedawg]

I had the same concern over opening the floor to the room below. Talked it over with the inspector while he was over. His response was to poke his head out into the hallway, look at the stairway, look back at me, look back at the stairway, and say: "Looks like you have a pretty good sized hole between the two floors already!"

So in other words, probably not an issue. And if you don't have smokes and carbons in the vicinity of your sleeping spaces and near to the stove already, you're 1) asking for trouble and 2) likely violating code requirements anyways. Smokes & carbons outside the bedrooms, smokes (carbons optional) inside the bedrooms, preferably linked / hardwired. Smoke not needed directly over the stove (you'd set it off all the time!) but needed in the adjoining rooms and something to think about using in another part of the same room if it's particularly large.

 

[begreen]

This came up a few days ago:

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/26644/

 

[MarcM]

I had the same concern over opening the floor to the room below. Talked it over with the inspector while he was over. His response was to poke his head out into the hallway, look at the stairway, look back at me, look back at the stairway, and say: "Looks like you have a pretty good sized hole between the two floors already!"

So in other words, probably not an issue. And if you don't have smokes and carbons in the vicinity of your sleeping spaces and near to the stove already, you're 1) asking for trouble and 2) likely violating code requirements anyways. Smokes & carbons outside the bedrooms, smokes (carbons optional) inside the bedrooms, preferably linked / hardwired. Smoke not needed directly over the stove (you'd set it off all the time!) but needed in the adjoining rooms and something to think about using in another part of the same room if it's particularly large.

Well, whether or not there's an issue depends on how you look at it. A room and contents fire is relatively simple for a FD to extinguish. In MOST cases, a fire doesn't spread horizontally from the room of origin until flash over occurs. If it's given a direct vertical path, chances are good it will spread before that.

Beyond that, if the home is occupied, and you sleep with your bedroom doors closed (as is safest), the unprotected floor again becomes an issue.

It all comes down to that risk vs. reward comparison.

 

[MarcM]

This came up a few days ago:

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/26644/

Thanks for the links BeGreen. I didn't really want to take the time to fabricate my own.

On a related note... I believe FM requires fusible links made for fire protection service to be replaced annually. It probably isn't necessary to replace them that often in a residential setting, but they're inexpensive enough (contact a fire protection contractor to see about availability) that they should be replaced on a regular basis.

 

[begreen]

I didn't know that. What ages with the link? I thought it was just a soft metal with a low melting point.