Wife hates the floor fans.... :(

[earl764]

It does either, depending on your system. I have forced air, so it's wired into my forced air tstat.

 

[Bster13]

So in your case it benefits you to circulate your hot air through your duct work in your uninsulated attic?

From what my HVAC guy tells me, pumping 75F air into a 65F room is not enough to overcome losses in the room. But pumping 50F air into a 75F room is enough to overcome it in the summer and that is why it works. (like mentioned already in this thread)

 

[PLAYS WITH FIRE]

i understand that they are expensive and underpowered. This guy is trying to appease the wife though.

I understand completely and I meant not to offend anyone just hopefully he does not save for something he's not happy with.

 

[Highbeam]

I too have a long and skinny one story home with a BK in the middle. I have a ceiling fan in the stove room which runs on low all the time and does a great job of mixing up the air in that room to be the same temp floor to ceiling. No floor fan jive.

1) Your stove will not make all rooms the same temperature. Get used to it, welcome to wood heat. The stove room will be warmer than the far bedrooms. I experience a 10 degree difference and really like it this way.

2) Heat up the stove room. If your far rooms are too cold then you need to burn harder and hotter in the stove room. How do like 78 degrees?

3) Don't let the stove room go cold. Keep the stove room quite warm all the time and the far rooms will stay warmer.

 

[earl764]

It evens out the heat in the house so when I walk into a room upstairs far from the stove, it's not ice cold.

 

[egclassic]

Dyson fan is crazy, but thx for the idea. I still don't have an logical reason why the duct work in my attic would work for cooling but not for heating. Any takers?

Assuming you have a NG forced air heating system in your house, The air coming off the heat exchanger of your furnace is WAY warmer than the air in your stove room you are trying to circulate will ever be. There is a lot of thermal loss by the time the air actually comes out of your registers. (loss from many, many small leaks in the duct work, uninsulated ductwork etc.) Have you ever tried taking an IR thermometer and aimed it at your registers while the heat/ac is running? The farther away from the source you get, the colder/warmer the air gets in respect to which system (heat or ac) is running.
When your A/C is running in the summer, it is doing 2 things, it is absorbing heat from the air and also taking the humidity out of the air.
Another reason using your ductwork to circulate heat from the stove is not efficient is due to fan speed. Most home HVAC system fan speeds are set to the highest possible speed for cooling (and also for circulation) and either medium-low or medium for heat. When you simply turn your fan to "auto", it is running at a high rate of speed which is further defeating your efforts to move warm air.

 

[Charles1981]

Yea that is a real pain in the butt.

Me and my wife live in the middle of nowhere-ville in a rancher where everyone burns wood. Basically red neck hill jack central.

I guess it comes with the territory of trying to burn solely with wood. All the fans and room doors with window screening to keep air flow going and cats out really makes us look like the rednecks we are. My wife is totally ok with that. I don't know what I would do if my wife wasn't on board with wood burning and using box fans and floor fans to keep the place warm. I feel your pain.

 

[ailanthus]

1) Your stove will not make all rooms the same temperature. Get used to it, welcome to wood heat. The stove room will be warmer than the far bedrooms. I experience a 10 degree difference and really like it this way.

Agree completely Highbeam - I do get some house envy hearing lots of people on here maintaining fairly consistent temperatures throughout the house. But I've got an old house, and I've reached the limit of how much air-sealing I'm willing to do (way better at this point to just go cut some more wood than wriggle around on my belly in the crawlspace with a caulkgun). The stove room is as much as 10-15 degrees warmer than the bedrooms, but I really am OK with that. It still feels 10x warmer than forced air.

 

[Charles1981]

I agree that the stove won't give equal heat around the house, but I have to disagree that you can't experience substantial improvement. However if you are already running multiple fans and with experimentation have hit a point of diminishing returns you have probably maxed out your heating capabilities.

My stove room is 85+ (basement). My bedroom next to the stove room is 70 degrees without the fan on. We turn the fan on in the evening blowing through an installed screen door and the bedroom goes to 76 or so shortly.

Upstairs without the ceiling fan is 67-68. Turn on the ceiling fan it the upstairs family room easily gets up to 72-73. I placed a fan over the register and with it on can get the family room up to 75.

The upstairs bed rooms farthest away from the stove are easily 60- 65 degrees with doors closed (we don't heat them unless guests are over). Open the door and place a small box fan blowing out towards the family room and they will eventually get to 70 or so in a few hours. But then most people want to sleep with the door closed and so that is when the baseboard electric heaters come into play (guests over sleeping at night).

We have 3-4 fans running at any one point during the day and without them the stove would be producing less than ideal results. Living in a 1971 2 story ranch with walkout with decent but not great insulation and multiple original old huge bay windows with storm windows on them and heavy curtains over them...so there is a decent amount of heat loss in the house.

 

[Hoozie]

Any way you can get under the house to install a cold air return to the stove room?

I really need to do that at my place. If I could find where to get under the house

 

[mass_burner]

I just started using one of the little Honeywell fans on the floor of the coldest room, and the difference was immediate. That particular brand is pretty quiet, and my wife is very sensitive to anything noisy, so it passes that test here.

-JE

My common area is separated by the bedrooms by a hallway. I have a small fan near the end of the hallway pointed toward the stove room. I also have 2 oil filled electric units in the bedrooms on a timer. 1 hour before bedtime. You could also set the timer for every other 1/2 hour within a certain time period.

 

[mass_burner]

Any way you can get under the house to install a cold air return to the stove room?

I really need to do that at my place. If I could find where to get under the house

Any way you can get under the house to install a cold air return to the stove room?

I really need to do that at my place. If I could find where to get under the house

Hmmm. I have a full basement so it would be very easy. Would you put an inline fan of some sort?

 

[Sinngetreu]

You could just get a new wife!?

I'm only joking

 

[rdust]

My main floor stays pretty even, upstairs(bedrooms) is anywhere from 6-10 degrees cooler depending on the outside air temp. In the past I put a fan in the hallway leading to the family room(stove room), I haven't even bothered this year and don't notice much/if any difference.

Some floor plans are great for heating with wood, others not so much. If I ever build a house it will be an open floor plan designed around wood heating with a stove.

 

[weatherguy]

My common area is separated by the bedrooms by a hallway. I have a small fan near the end of the hallway pointed toward the stove room. I also have 2 oil filled electric units in the bedrooms on a timer. 1 hour before bedtime. You could also set the timer for every other 1/2 hour within a certain time period.

Are those oil filled units the most energy efficient? I have one cold room that I'm never going to get it as warm as the rest of the house, was thinking of putting something in there when the room is used.

 

[mass_burner]

Are those oil filled units the most energy efficient? I have one cold room that I'm never going to get it as warm as the rest of the house, was thinking of putting something in there when the room is used.

I think so. They are a less dry heat. They have 600 and 1500 watt settings. The trick is JIT heating. Examine your habits and set the timer to match.

 

[Hoozie]

Hmmm. I have a full basement so it would be very easy. Would you put an inline fan of some sort?

Full basement? I'd have a return from every far room Yea, I'd find an inline vent for a bathroom, or maybe a larger squirrel-cage type fan.

Are those oil filled units the most energy efficient? I have one cold room that I'm never going to get it as warm as the rest of the house, was thinking of putting something in there when the room is used.

If you're making heat from electricity, can you be anything but 100% efficient? Unless you're also powering a fan, all the heat you make will enter the room eventually. It's just a question of how fast you want/need it.

 

[Upsydaizie]

Anyone know where I can get a blower for THE MORAVIAN ( pictured to left) ?

I tried the 20" box fan from the stove room to the back rooms...no go. The air coming out of the box fan was much cooler than the air going into it, so it was not sending warm air to the rooms I need it to.

 

[mass_burner]

Full basement? I'd have a return from every far room Yea, I'd find an inline vent for a bathroom, or maybe a larger squirrel-cage type fan.

Is it be feasible to have a dual vent with air flowing opposite ways? One as you describe; and the other pulling warm air in?

 

[Bster13]

Tried the fan for the A/C with insulated ducts in the ceiling... no dice, lost heat. Fans are back out, will buy my wife something nice for Xmas.