Suggestions for moving heat from wall oven to bedroom above?

[snowleopard]

My kitchen is on the east end of the house, downstairs; my bedroom above it (roughly, mostly). They are separated by wooden I-beam joists, so about a foot of dead space between them. I usually use the wall-mounted oven in the evening when prepping dinner, and the extra heat it generates warms the cupboard above it and the kitchen ceiling. Wondered if there is a safe way to tap into that heat to warm the bedroom above it. I already have a hole in the bedroom floor for air circulation, and it would be wonderful to use that, but without tearing up the floor, or finding a smart, amiable guinea pig willing to do some modifications, I don't know how to make use of that space.

It would be great to flip a fan and pull that extra heat up into my room in the evenings, which is when I want the room warmer. Or to have a passive heat system (vent? soapstone slab?)

Am I explaining this clearly? Any ideas?

 

[maverick06]

the heat is already getting up there. It take a bit longer to go through the ceiling and all, but its not lost.

 

[snowleopard]

the heat is already getting up there. It take a bit longer to go through the ceiling and all, but its not lost.

The heat is getting circulated in the house, sort of, but with two layers of sheetrock and a foot of dead-air space between them, I'm not seeing much of the benefits. Since that spot is one of the warmer ones, and my room is the coldest spot, I'd like to figure out a way to take advantage of that--perhaps a passive exchange for safety, and to minimize cooking odors in the room above.

Another option would be to try to tie that in with the existing air ducts, but that might be a little tricky to pull off because of location.

Anyone out there figured out a way to accomplish this?

 

[Dune]

Hi Snowleopard. I put some thought into your idea. From what I can see, there is no safe, practical, inexpensive, legal solution. The only possibilty is an air to air heat exhanger. I doubt a passive model exists, I could be wrong. I also doubt that payback would ever be achieved. Sorry. For that matter, chance are the hole in your floor isn't legal. In some places it is, in others not. If it turns out that it is, your solution may be as simple as a nice tight duct between the two floors with registers, and leaving the doors open throughout the house, from the bedroom back to the kitchen, so the cold air displaced by the rising hot air can return to the kitchen.

Check with the building dept. in your town.

 

[snowleopard]

Hello Dune, and thank you for taking the time to consider my question.

You've given me some interesting things to consider, and I did a little poking around to get more information. I know that, since we are outside the city limits, municipal fire codes don't apply. What I didn't know was that there are state codes; most of what I've found seems to apply to larger or commercial buildings.

I've got pretty good circulation throughout the house, as the heat from the centrally-located woodstove does a pretty good job getting the house warm upstairs. I've also considered putting fans in that would pull the air through the existing ducts, as their is an outlet in the ceiling where the woodstove is located. I've also considered putting in another wood stove, just a little one in the sunroom (also beneath my bedroom, so that the extra heat from the stovepipe would help warm the bedroom.

It's not a huge issue--the room is now much warmer than it was when I was heating with a boiler and had a small stretch of hwbb in my bedroom as the sole heat source. Just seemed a pity not to be able to make use of that heat. Suppose I could do it the old-fashioned way and heat up a slab of soapstone in the oven to slide between the covers and keep my toes warm. But dang-it--this would be so slick if I could pull it off. It would have to be something I could regulate pretty thoroughly or it would get too hot up here in the summer.

If the pre-existing holes for ducting aren't legal, I would think that would warrent a discussion with the inspector who signed off on my house, as this was not mentioned as a problem.

 

[semipro]

Check out "fire dampers" like these http://www.mtlfab.com/dampers.php and elsewhere. They use a fusible link to hold open a self-closing vent. If you have a fire, they close to slow the spread of fire.