how do i get warm upstairs?

[esuitt]

OK, after reading some of the post from this thread and others. I already know trying to heat this 100 y/o house with no wall insulation is just like opening up a window.
But for the past 3 days I have had my stove almost full blast just trying to keep up with the outside temp.
So, I changed the fan configuration and instead of trying to blow the warm air upstairs and turned it toward the stove and my downstairs temp has already went from 74 - 76 in about an hours time. Plus there are ceiling fans in every room, that run 24/7. 2 years ago I cut a vent hole in our sons room cause he had nothing and am about to do the same thing with our room.

 

[Jafo]

Jafo,
Hey that fan in a vent is pretty great! Do you have it hooked up to power somewhere?

We have a vent system from the old furnace. One of the ducts comes from the basement, has a vent into the main floor in the living area and goes straight up and opens up with two vents into two of the bedrooms upstairs. What we hope to try next is to plug off the duct just below the opening on the main floor and use some sort of a fan to circulate the air between the upper and lower floors through that duct. I'm just not sure if it's going to work or if we can get a fan the right size with enough power to move the air through the duct. In theory it sounds great though.

Yeah I ran it right into an extension cord for now while we test it this season. If I like it, I am going to connect it to a switch.

As for all the talk of fans here, I notice everyone saying the fans should blow towards the stove? I have a fan blowing air from the stove to the living room:

Is it everyones opinion that I should switch the direction of this? I thought it would make more sense the way it is now pushing the hot air into the living room?

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Jafo,
Hey that fan in a vent is pretty great! Do you have it hooked up to power somewhere?

We have a vent system from the old furnace. One of the ducts comes from the basement, has a vent into the main floor in the living area and goes straight up and opens up with two vents into two of the bedrooms upstairs. What we hope to try next is to plug off the duct just below the opening on the main floor and use some sort of a fan to circulate the air between the upper and lower floors through that duct. I'm just not sure if it's going to work or if we can get a fan the right size with enough power to move the air through the duct. In theory it sounds great though.

Yeah I ran it right into an extension cord for now while we test it this season. If I like it, I am going to connect it to a switch.

As for all the talk of fans here, I notice everyone saying the fans should blow towards the stove? I have a fan blowing air from the stove to the living room:

Is it everyones opinion that I should switch the direction of this? I thought it would make more sense the way it is now pushing the hot air into the living room?

The fans towards the stove is for cold air, you move the cold stuff towards the stove to be picked up and heated and blown back out above the cold air. It is a lot easier moving cold dense air that warm air. It also is faster as the warm air has a place to go.

 

[lessoil]

I have the same problem with my house. I tried the fans, I tried the ceiling fans upstairs. Bottom line I think is the lack of BTU's coming from the pellet stove.
I probably need double the BTU's in order for it to heat up the 2nd floor.
I think that this an extremely common problem with pellet stove users. My buddy has a similar sized wood burning stove with no blowers on it and it puts out double the BTU's that my pellet stove does. His 2nd floor is so hot they have to open the windows sometimes.
I think its all about BTU's. Period.

We also gave up trying fans. Found that the upstairs bedrooms were a bit warmer with all fans shut off.
Natural convection was working. The other thing is our house (Cape) is not insulated properly.
The upstairs sloped ceiling just above the kneewall does not have any insulation at all.
The total area of this uninsulated ceiling is 5' X 30' !!
Under the sheetrock is the roof. 2X4 construction

A guy at work also has a Cape but with proper insulation.
He has to shut the upstairs bedroom doors because the rooms get too warm.
His stove is also in the livingroom

 

[Pellet-King]

Fan's just make it feel colder/draft feeling, my 1952 1500sqft cape is 66 now burning okies and thats in the same room as the stove, living room,my upstairs is not bad, maybe cause the heat escapes thru and draws the warm air up, if your upstairs is super tight it may not draw the heat upwards?
I set the furnace to 66 cause i cant take it and the family is complaining, last yr i went thru 1/4 tank of oil all winter and this winter is already colder than the last 5 yrs.

 

[NHMOM]

We also gave up trying fans. Found that the upstairs bedrooms were a bit warmer with all fans shut off.
Natural convection was working. The other thing is our house (Cape) is not insulated properly.
The upstairs sloped ceiling just above the kneewall does not have any insulation at all.
The total area of this uninsulated ceiling is 5’ X 30’ !!
Under the sheetrock is the roof. 2X4 construction

A guy at work also has a Cape but with proper insulation.
He has to shut the upstairs bedroom doors because the rooms get too warm.
His stove is also in the livingroom

...........

Thats exactly what I had to do when I lived in CT. Had a cape, with the stove in the living room and had to keep all the upstair doors shut ALL the time.. Even had to put a HUGE fan at the top of the stairs to blow the hot air downstairs. It was beyond HOT upstairs..

 

[doghouse]

OK, after reading some of the post from this thread and others. I already know trying to heat this 100 y/o house with no wall insulation is just like opening up a window.
But for the past 3 days I have had my stove almost full blast just trying to keep up with the outside temp.
So, I changed the fan configuration and instead of trying to blow the warm air upstairs and turned it toward the stove and my downstairs temp has already went from 74 - 76 in about an hours time. Plus there are ceiling fans in every room, that run 24/7. 2 years ago I cut a vent hole in our sons room cause he had nothing and am about to do the same thing with our room.

Thats the solution: a separate path for the warm air to rise and for the cool air to fall.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

OK, after reading some of the post from this thread and others. I already know trying to heat this 100 y/o house with no wall insulation is just like opening up a window.
But for the past 3 days I have had my stove almost full blast just trying to keep up with the outside temp.
So, I changed the fan configuration and instead of trying to blow the warm air upstairs and turned it toward the stove and my downstairs temp has already went from 74 - 76 in about an hours time. Plus there are ceiling fans in every room, that run 24/7. 2 years ago I cut a vent hole in our sons room cause he had nothing and am about to do the same thing with our room.

Thats the solution: a separate path for the warm air to rise and for the cool air to fall.

You think, you mean sorta like this:

The fans towards the stove is for cold air, you move the cold stuff towards the stove to be picked up and heated and blown back out above the cold air. It is a lot easier moving cold dense air that warm air. It also is faster as the warm air has a place to go.

Form: https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewreply/744666/ and many other threads on here including threads in the hearth room.

 

[doghouse]

OK, after reading some of the post from this thread and others. I already know trying to heat this 100 y/o house with no wall insulation is just like opening up a window.
But for the past 3 days I have had my stove almost full blast just trying to keep up with the outside temp.
So, I changed the fan configuration and instead of trying to blow the warm air upstairs and turned it toward the stove and my downstairs temp has already went from 74 - 76 in about an hours time. Plus there are ceiling fans in every room, that run 24/7. 2 years ago I cut a vent hole in our sons room cause he had nothing and am about to do the same thing with our room.

Thats the solution: a separate path for the warm air to rise and for the cool air to fall.

You think, you mean sorta like this:

The fans towards the stove is for cold air, you move the cold stuff towards the stove to be picked up and heated and blown back out above the cold air. It is a lot easier moving cold dense air that warm air. It also is faster as the warm air has a place to go.

Form: https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewreply/744666/ and many other threads on here including threads in the hearth room.

Not exactly. Lets use the above posting as an example. He has a two storey home, so that means he has a stairway going up (path number one). In the section I hi-lited and colored purple, he stated that he 'cut a hole in in his sons room' (path number two). Two separate paths! warm air-> Hole in floor
<-cool air Stairway

 

[esuitt]

Not exactly. Lets use the above posting as an example. He has a two storey home, so that means he has a stairway going up (path number one). In the section I hi-lited and colored purple, he stated that he 'cut a hole in in his sons room' (path number two). Two separate paths! warm air-> Hole in floor
<-cool air Stairway

All I can tell is after I change the fans around last night (about 6pm) to blow the cold air down instead and at the stove of the warm air up. Our house stayed comfortable all night long and my indoor temp only changed 3 degrees 77 to 74. Before my inside temp would drop from 77 to 69 when the outside temp is 20. I can live with that.
I do want to get a thermometer for upstairs, maybe at the end of the hall way to see what kind of difference it makes also.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

OK, after reading some of the post from this thread and others. I already know trying to heat this 100 y/o house with no wall insulation is just like opening up a window.
But for the past 3 days I have had my stove almost full blast just trying to keep up with the outside temp.
So, I changed the fan configuration and instead of trying to blow the warm air upstairs and turned it toward the stove and my downstairs temp has already went from 74 - 76 in about an hours time. Plus there are ceiling fans in every room, that run 24/7. 2 years ago I cut a vent hole in our sons room cause he had nothing and am about to do the same thing with our room.

Thats the solution: a separate path for the warm air to rise and for the cool air to fall.

You think, you mean sorta like this:

The fans towards the stove is for cold air, you move the cold stuff towards the stove to be picked up and heated and blown back out above the cold air. It is a lot easier moving cold dense air that warm air. It also is faster as the warm air has a place to go.

Form: https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewreply/744666/ and many other threads on here including threads in the hearth room.

Not exactly. Lets use the above posting as an example. He has a two storey home, so that means he has a stairway going up (path number one). In the section I hi-lited and colored purple, he stated that he 'cut a hole in in his sons room' (path number two). Two separate paths! warm air-> Hole in floor
<-cool air Stairway

Yes but the same thing can effectively be done with out cutting holes all over the place. You just have to separate the warm and cold air, the density of the two will maintain the separation long enough to establish and maintain a convection loop. It can even be done in a single stairwell without resorting to anything more than the convection blower on your stove. Having two separate physically constrained paths isn't needed because the air will take care of that by itself. Having the two physically separated paths paths is also fine.

 

[jgcable]

Here is something I noticed last night.
It was 9 degrees outside. When I got home from work the pellet stove was off and my regular steam fired radiators were keeping my house at a constant 65 degrees.
I decided to cook up a bag so I loaded the insert and maxed it out for about 4 hours.
The temp on the 1st floor where the insert is was at 72. I walked upstairs and the heat was blasting up the stairs and stopped dead at the hallway.
This is normal for me. What I noticed was that on the 1st landing of my staircase upstairs there is a window. Its a brand new window so there is no leaks but the drapes were moving like their was a draft coming from it. On that landing there is a very high ceiling semi vaulted ceiling. I reached my hand up and I could feel warm air up there. When I got down on the floor I could actually feel a breeze of cool air at the floor. It seemed that the cold air was blowing towards the downstairs and the hot air way above it was collecting up in the ceiling.
What the heck??

 

[Jim H.]

a ceiling fan could really help there, running on low and reversed. I also have my stove downstairs in what is our family room. The house is @ 22K sqft.
When I took out a half wall between the dining room and kitchen it left a hole in the floor where the 2 sandwiched 2x4's held up the end. I cut a hole in the downstairs ceiling at that point and felt and checked the temps coming up. It was 80 plus. I had an extra fan (like the ones used in our pellet stoves) and mounted it in the ceiling. I have it on a digital thermostat and also on a variable speed. I keep it on low and it pulls the heat up big time. I to can feel the cool air moving down the stairs so I know it is moving well. I also noticed my furthest bedroom stays the coldest, so I am always pulling cool air from there.....so I started partially closing off this room to slow down the cool air. What I have noticed is now that I am burning daily, the temps in my family room are staying at 75* while upstairs stays within 72-75 also. It takes a few days to even out the temps, and I definitely need new windows, but it works well. My house was built in 1982 and only has 2x4 exterior walls. It has been down as low as 13* so far last night. I am going through 1-1.5 bags a day messing with the settings on the xxv. I tried setting the feed rate all the way to 1 on room temp, but the flame stays smaller and has to work harder to keep the temps.....so after messing I am staying at the feed rate of 4 and letting it cycle high and low, this seems to be efficient.....good luck!

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Here is something I noticed last night.
It was 9 degrees outside. When I got home from work the pellet stove was off and my regular steam fired radiators were keeping my house at a constant 65 degrees.
I decided to cook up a bag so I loaded the insert and maxed it out for about 4 hours.
The temp on the 1st floor where the insert is was at 72. I walked upstairs and the heat was blasting up the stairs and stopped dead at the hallway.
This is normal for me. What I noticed was that on the 1st landing of my staircase upstairs there is a window. Its a brand new window so there is no leaks but the drapes were moving like their was a draft coming from it. On that landing there is a very high ceiling semi vaulted ceiling. I reached my hand up and I could feel warm air up there. When I got down on the floor I could actually feel a breeze of cool air at the floor. It seemed that the cold air was blowing towards the downstairs and the hot air way above it was collecting up in the ceiling.
What the heck??

Yep, you just found the hot air portion of the convection loop the less dense air goes all the way up and as it cools it becomes denser and drops and winds up in the cold air portion of the loop.

If you can move enough air through your pellet eater's convection system the turn over will happen quicker and the difference in temperatures between up high and down low will become less.

Now the suggestion about running ceiling fans in reverse at low speeds may or may not help in any given situation (I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader who is interested).

Congratulations you just discovered why my pellet stove is able to keep my house warm even though it is in the basement, there is a single stairwell, and no fans other than the convection fan on the stove is in use.

 

[jgcable]

Here is something I noticed last night.
It was 9 degrees outside. When I got home from work the pellet stove was off and my regular steam fired radiators were keeping my house at a constant 65 degrees.
I decided to cook up a bag so I loaded the insert and maxed it out for about 4 hours.
The temp on the 1st floor where the insert is was at 72. I walked upstairs and the heat was blasting up the stairs and stopped dead at the hallway.
This is normal for me. What I noticed was that on the 1st landing of my staircase upstairs there is a window. Its a brand new window so there is no leaks but the drapes were moving like their was a draft coming from it. On that landing there is a very high ceiling semi vaulted ceiling. I reached my hand up and I could feel warm air up there. When I got down on the floor I could actually feel a breeze of cool air at the floor. It seemed that the cold air was blowing towards the downstairs and the hot air way above it was collecting up in the ceiling.
What the heck??

Yep, you just found the hot air portion of the convection loop the less dense air goes all the way up and as it cools it becomes denser and drops and winds up in the cold air portion of the loop.

If you can move enough air through your pellet eater's convection system the turn over will happen quicker and the difference in temperatures between up high and down low will become less.

Now the suggestion about running ceiling fans in reverse at low speeds may or may not help in any given situation (I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader who is interested).

Congratulations you just discovered why my pellet stove is able to keep my house warm even though it is in the basement, there is a single stairwell, and no fans other than the convection fan on the stove is in use.

So what do you suggest I do now that I found it? My inclination is to put a fan on the landing on the floor blowing on high down the stairs towards the 1st floor. The fan on my stove was on full blast. It was so hot in front of the stove I thought my 2 Chihuahua's who were laying down in their beds directly in front of it were going to burst into flames.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Here is something I noticed last night.
It was 9 degrees outside. When I got home from work the pellet stove was off and my regular steam fired radiators were keeping my house at a constant 65 degrees.
I decided to cook up a bag so I loaded the insert and maxed it out for about 4 hours.
The temp on the 1st floor where the insert is was at 72. I walked upstairs and the heat was blasting up the stairs and stopped dead at the hallway.
This is normal for me. What I noticed was that on the 1st landing of my staircase upstairs there is a window. Its a brand new window so there is no leaks but the drapes were moving like their was a draft coming from it. On that landing there is a very high ceiling semi vaulted ceiling. I reached my hand up and I could feel warm air up there. When I got down on the floor I could actually feel a breeze of cool air at the floor. It seemed that the cold air was blowing towards the downstairs and the hot air way above it was collecting up in the ceiling.
What the heck??

Yep, you just found the hot air portion of the convection loop the less dense air goes all the way up and as it cools it becomes denser and drops and winds up in the cold air portion of the loop.

If you can move enough air through your pellet eater's convection system the turn over will happen quicker and the difference in temperatures between up high and down low will become less.

Now the suggestion about running ceiling fans in reverse at low speeds may or may not help in any given situation (I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader who is interested).

Congratulations you just discovered why my pellet stove is able to keep my house warm even though it is in the basement, there is a single stairwell, and no fans other than the convection fan on the stove is in use.

So what do you suggest I do now that I found it? My inclination is to put a fan on the landing on the floor blowing on high down the stairs towards the 1st floor. The fan on my stove was on full blast. It was so hot in front of the stove I thought my 2 Chihuahua's who were laying down in their beds directly in front of it were going to burst into flames.

Well since I don't remember the stove you have and its maximum usable heat output or any real detail about your house, the first thing I'd do is place a fan on the floor in the doorway of the room the stove is in blowing towards the stove and set it on low and see how things shake out. Yes this will be trial and error, the goal is to get the air circulating in the whole house. How fast things change in temperature is going to depend upon to many things.

You may not be able to produce enough BTUs per hour to handle the heat loss of what you are trying to heat (this is critical, you can not violate the laws of physics).

Sorry for the amount of time for the reply but I had things that needed attending to. I'll likely be in and out most of tomorrow and we have company on Sunday.

 

[emmittjames]

So, this seems to go against most of the advice here, but last night i mounted a small 10" desk-type fan in the high corner of doorway of the living room, blowing toward the stairs leading to the 2nd floor. within an hour, the upstairs temp raised 3 degrees. i actually woke up overnight too warm. i know it was also a lot less cold over night, but the fan clearly made a difference and moved the warm air out of the living room. i'm happy and relieved. and expecting 2 tons of Vermonts this afternoon! woo-hoo!

 

[jtakeman]

So, this seems to go against most of the advice here, but last night i mounted a small 10" desk-type fan in the high corner of doorway of the living room, blowing toward the stairs leading to the 2nd floor. within an hour, the upstairs temp raised 3 degrees. i actually woke up overnight too warm. i know it was also a lot less cold over night, but the fan clearly made a difference and moved the warm air out of the living room. i'm happy and relieved. and expecting 2 tons of Vermonts this afternoon! woo-hoo!

You can move the warm air that way, But moving the cool just seems easier. As long as you made it warmer where you wanted to. If you have a hard time moving the warm, You could always try moving the cold.

 

[ramdez]

I have an 1850sqft bi level w/ the stove in a basement corner pointing at the steps in the center of house. i leave the door open and run barefoot pellets. stoves at feed of 4 thermo at 70 and usually once the outside temp got below 30 i would have a 10 deg diff from upstairs to downstairs. 80 down to keep it at 70 up. i recently installed this in the center of my house almost in line with the stairs http://www.atrendyhome.com/ultrabooster.html and right now it's 28 outside and i have the stove at 70 and it's 71 upstairs in the living room last night i was finishing off some crap pellets and had to do 78 down for 70 up with the exact same setup. barefoot rocks.