Air circulation question

[NewGuy132]

So now that my first season is in the books (I'll probably post a end of season thread to help and new people that might have run in to the same questions I had) I have some questions about what everyone with a freestanding stove does. Our stove (VC Intrepid) is admittedly undersized for our house (3200 sqft) but we bought it with the idea of it supplementing the oil heat on the first floor. Early in the season we I picked up one of those fans to sit on top of the stove, but I really don't think that it does much. Eventually we just ended up tossing a fan in one corner blowing at the stove to get air to circulate. It seemed to work OK, but I almost felt like we weren't getting the most out of the stove. It be fair if we close off the doors to the addition to the house that has probably 15ft vaulted ceilings then it keeps most of the first floor between hot and fairly warm.

So my big question is, is it better to just let the air naturally move from warm to cold or is having a fan blowing on the stove a decent idea?

 

[gthomas785]

It's a common struggle - especially if your house has a more closed-off layout - to get the heat from the stove distributed. I typically run a couple of fans on low, at floor level near the doorways pointing in to the stove room. It helps to keep that room from getting too hot while moving a bit of heat to the other rooms. Still, there will always be a temperature difference between rooms that you kind of get used to.
Ultimately you'll just have to experiment to see what gives you the highest level of comfort.

 

[stoveliker]

Indeed, a fan in the corner of the stove room does not help spread the heat thru the home, it only helps the stove room get hotter. That would then have to spread thru the home by natural convection, which is evidently not enough. The fan *slowly* blowing cold air into the stove room as noted above is the way to go.

Those thermoelectric fans (I have one too) are toys, not tools...

 

[xman23]

Unfortunately It's hard to make major changes to what you have. The best is to push cold air out of rooms, along the floor. This will create a negative pressure. The warmer air will run above it to fill the room. I have that happen without fans, about a hour after I get the stove room hot.
3200 sq ft is a lot to heat with a single source of heat. That said with the right insulation and windows the far rooms will stay warmer.

 

[kennyp2339]

Every home is setup different and has different pressures, I'd venture to say getting a ceiling fan and running it in reverse on low will do a great job with mixing and warming the perimeter

 

[TradEddie]

It's always going to be a problem, but I found that a tower fan on the lowest setting blowing cold air into the stove room was most effective (but still not as effective as I'd hope). Higher speeds seem to create turbulence and disrupt the warm air at the ceiling and reduce overall movement of warm air. You want to help the natural convection loop, not fight against it.

TE