Heat distribution

[xandrew4507x]

I bought a harman p43 pellet stove a few months ago, so far I love the stove, but I am having some issues with getting heat around.

I live in a typical 1300 sq ft ranch house, living room, entryway and dining room on one side, 2 bedrooms and kitchen on other side, wall diving down the middle. Stove in located in the living room on the opposite side of kitchen and dining room.

Keep the living room very cozy(where we spend most of our time anyway) dining room a little cooler. However the two bedrooms, bath and kitchen are always cold, master bed is usually around 64 if the door is left open, im sure the other bedroom is roughly the same temp and kitchen 60-62 on far end. I have a fan through the wall at ceiling height that pumps heat into the hallway from the living room, works pretty well, the warmest I have gotten that side is to 68.

I have been building a bar in my finished basement and was epoxying the top, I needed it to be 75 down there, so I set up three space heaters. It was about 74 at thermostat and about 76-78 at ceiling height in the basement. I noticed the next day when I woke up that our bedroom was all but 71 degrees, and we even at the door closed. I had an idea and shut the stove down for the whole day. The bedrooms stayed at 70, kitchen at 71 and living room at 69 all day, outside temp was in the high 30s, mid 20s at night. This even heat was coming from my finished basement being heated.

Now I know they usually say not to put your stove in the basement because its very hard to get heat upstairs, but in my situation it seems to work very well with no effort, and the temps seem very stable. I bought a coal stove to heat my finished basement when we use it, but now I am thinking about possibly running it at idle to keep the basement warm to help balance the up stairs. Thoughts on this?

 

[Lake Girl]

I would say experience speaks for itself and that you've proven heating the basement to a minimum takes stress off the upstairs stove...

 

[F4jock]

If your home is small enough a basement stove works well. Since you've empirically demonstrated that this is true in your case I don't see the problem. Try it and go with the results.

 

[Hdhogger]

Got the CAB50 in the basement with the entryway centrally located. I leave the door open and the heat pours up the stairway. House is post and beam, two story with some vaulted ceilings. I do have floor registers that act as cold air return to the basement, seems to work well. Including the basement I'm heating about 2800sf. With just the pellet stove running I'm good down to 30f, below that I fire up the wood stove and load as needed. With both running I'm good down to around 10f, below that I might have to kick on the oil a couple of times a day.

 

[Jason Knapp]

I also have issues with heat distribution. I'd love to put a stove in the basement, but for now I have a box fan set on low that pulls the cold air into the area with the pellet stove. The fan looks a bit tacky, but it helps distribute the heat.

 

[Wilbur Feral]

It sounds like you found your answer. You might want to replicate it one more time to be certain, but it sounds like heat moves from your basement to upstairs very effectively.

Personally, we find that having a second stove in our basement heats our house (almost 3000 SF and reasonably insulated, but with a few leaky windows) to the point that the heat pump isn't necessary. It won't do much for us on its own, but is a great "helper".

 

[Daveman]

I think much depends on home design.....our stove in the basement does a great job heating the entire house. Woke up this AM to -15c outside, basement 29c, main floor at 24.5c and upstairs where all 3 bedrooms are sits at 19c. We own a semi-detected home with one common wall and the 40 year old design seems made for pellet heat...not to mention the warm kitchen floor on wife's bare feet!

The heated air rises up the stairways, and you feel the cold air heading down big time....If it's really windy outside, I may run a ceiling fan on reverse upstairs to help pull some heat, and for some crazy airflow reason when my daughter takes a shower...usually a 20 minute adventure, the temp upstairs rises a degree in 2 with the bathroom fan pulling air out of the house.

 

[Wilbur Feral]

I think much depends on home design

Bingo. As OP and you have found, a basement stove works well for some, poorly for others. The OP's test of using electric heaters to bring basement temp up to reasonable, "pellet-simulating" level for a day or so, in typical winter temps, is a great idea to help decide on the utility of a basement install. Others should try that.

 

[xandrew4507x]

I'm setting up my space heaters today and get it cranked up down there to run another test. Here is a sketch of how my upstairs and basement is. The pellet stove is currently located in the far end of the living room, and coal stove is to be located in the utility room in the basement. There is a set of double doors at the bottom of the stairs that goes into the spare room, another door that goes into the utility room. The walls are only half inch drywall with no insulation, so the heat should distribute into the rooms easily. The heat apparently rose up through the drop ceiling and into the bedrooms when I ran my test, and went up the stairs into the kitchen, the coolest room was actually the living room upstairs when I ran my last test.

 

[acammer]

I run my pellet stove from the basement, and it works quite well. I have employed my furnace's blower in the air distribution of the pellet stove, and it works quite well - I put a cold air return right at the top of the wall in the basement room where the stove is and pull from only that return. I'm heating 2,100sqft with that setup. I think you have a valid test and the results speak for themselves.

 

[tonyd]

Not sure about your staircase but this works very well with a split foyer. Pix are taken from the front door and one from the stove. Works very well. hths

 

[xandrew4507x]

My stairs are open in the side that lead to the finished room, all that is there Is a partial wall to act as a rail this allows plenty of air flow

 

[TonyVideo]

Make sure you always point fans blowing toward the stove.

 

[St_Earl]

Make sure you always point fans blowing toward the stove.

i do agree, but would add that in some cases (mine for instance) once the convection loop is going, and the warm air is moving up high, helper fans can then be used to "power" the convection loop further.
my two vornado 510s are up high. one in the doorway from the stove room and one in the arch between the dining room and kitchen. the first one feeds straight to the second one and that shoots the warm air under the last two arches before the back bedroom.

but it all starts with the floor fans. one outside the back bedroom and right outside the stove room itself, both blowing cold air towards the stove.

altogether there are 4 arches obstructing our back bedroom from good passive air flow at ceiling level, and it also has a short but narrow vestibule/hall and an outer door is right there too.
hell of a bottleneck.

when it's not terribly cold we will run no fans, or one floor fan, or both. and then the vornadoes depending on the situation.
at this point i can control the back bedroom temp within minutes to right where we want it.

 

[bags]

Bingo. As OP and you have found, a basement stove works well for some, poorly for others. The OP's test of using electric heaters to bring basement temp up to reasonable, "pellet-simulating" level for a day or so, in typical winter temps, is a great idea to help decide on the utility of a basement install. Others should try that.

Great point! Cheap experiment all and all. The warm air is going to move thru each home the same way no matter what the heat source is. Location specific of course.

Another point to add here is that many have issues heating and moving air around on a single floor plan for fairly equal heat distribution. This confirms that every situation is different as well. I have multiple experiments and pushing cold air to the stove did not work out so well here. Many it does and makes sense but not for me. Gotta explore ALL your possibilities and options is all I am saying. My place is fairly open but it is a very non-typical home and floor plan. I Guinea Pig myself on my projects 1st usually as a design build contractor. Sometimes I win,,,,,,,,, Sometimes I have kicked myself in the can too. LOL! Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

 

[Jason Knapp]

I picked up a 25 PDVC recently. I'm thinking about a basement install to help heat the house. I was up in the air until the weather started to get really cold!

 

[xandrew4507x]

I ran out of time and never got to finish my test yesterday. I have been thinking about moving the pellet stove to the dining room, this would give it a direct path to the hallway leading to the bedrooms vs how it is now having to go the whole way to the end of the living room, do a 180 and then back the hallway.

 

[Lake Girl]

What happened to running coal stove on idle?

 

[xandrew4507x]

Coal stove is not hooked up yet, I need to get stove pipe and get it set up, still need to have it checked out thoroughly first by a pro to see if anything needs replaced.

 

[xandrew4507x]

Well, I ran the space heaters in the basement for about half they day yesterday after I played around with fans to try to get air moving with no luck. I did manage to get the dining room, and kitchen warmer, but I just can't get the air back the hallway quick enough.

The bedroom sat at a steady 64 all day, until the basement was around 68-70 and I started to see temps rise, it made it up to 68 last night, I shut down all the fans I was using to move air back there and turned the pellet stove down. Temp stayed at 68 all night, living room was 70, I didn't check the kitchen but it felt warmer than usual. You could feel the warm air rushing up the stair case, and all the floors feel warm. The downstairs temp at the thermostat was only 72, so I feel I will have much better results when I am capable of getting the basement warmer. For reference, it was down in the mid 20s last night and it was very very windy, so I would say the test was pretty successful.

Its supposed to get really cold again, so that will be the ultimate test.

Also had the stove set at 65 overnight which usually keeps the room 68-70. We were home all day keeping room at 72, we usually would run out of pellets overnight with this much use, but this morning I still had at least a half hours worth of pellets.

 

[bags]

You should have plenty of stove for 1,300 SQ FT. Getting the right location and air movement you should be able to get the temps where you would like them. Granted, some far away areas from the stove are going to be slightly cooler than those near the stove. Just the way it is. Do you have a central forced air system in your home? If so, have you tried to run the fan only to circulate air of the stove for a possibly more even distribution?

 

[xandrew4507x]

No central air system, and no matter what I have tried with fans, the bedroom will not get any warmer than 64 by itself. I have a fan installed in a wall vent at ceiling level connecting the hallway and living room, this helps a lot pulling warm air from that side. Ive tried floor level fans pulling from bedroom, pushing down the hall, and pushing back into the room, Ive tried a fan blowing air out into the dining room/hall/kitchen then another blowing right into the bedroom, ive tried both blowing in and out of the bedroom at the same time. I have had absolutely no change in bedroom temp.

Usually keep the living room at 72-73 when we are there, 68-70 at night and 65 or lower when we aren't home. The bedroom temp always stays at 64 no matter what temperature I have it.

 

[mass_burner]

No central air system, and no matter what I have tried with fans, the bedroom will not get any warmer than 64 by itself.

Usually keep the living room at 72-73 when we are there, 68-70 at night and 65 or lower when we aren't home. The bedroom temp always stays at 64 no matter what temperature I have it.

This is what I'm seeing. I did a good test this weekend with incense. While the stove rooms were 70, half the house, the other half, was 65/64. I could see the upper warm going into the hallway and the cold air going into the stove room.

It just takes too long. Thresholds at the bedrooms don't help either.

 

[xandrew4507x]

I have gotten the hallway up to 67-68 degrees, but the bedroom is no change, I have to point a fan blowing from the living room into the dining room in order to get that room up to 68-70, otherwise it is 65-66. The kitchen is always cold, bathroom is always cold and bedrooms as well. I am seeing really good results so far with the basement heating. I am going to shut down my stove at lunch today just to see what temperatures are being maintained by the heat in the basement.

This leads me to believe that I am losing a ton of heat through my basement, or heating from the basement is really just that effective for me.

 

[bags]

With what you have said 72* - 64* = 8* difference in overall temps. In the big picture that is really not bad at all considering you are using a space heater to maintain those averages. I have a 6-8* difference between my warmest area near the stove and most distant bedrooms. Not too bad IMO. You are never going to get every room in your home to read exactly the same temps even with a central system of any kind. This can simply be affected by which side of your home faces North, S, E, and West for example. Also the longest runs from said central unit will be cooler in winter and likely warmer in summer depending.

In summer obviously an upper level room can and likely will be warmer than supplied rooms on a lower level farther away. Heat rises and temps are lost the farther you push that air. In winter lower levels are more difficult to heat and in summer upper levels to cool. That is simply how air works. Not much you can change there.