Another air circulation question in a ranch

[Pdog]

We are now going on our third season with our Jotul C550 and we love it. The issue like many have is trying to get all that sweet hot air to the rest of the house. Having a ranch we understand it will be more of a challenge, then add on top of that the old school 70s floorplan and we are struggling.

Our house is the furthest from an open floor plan as you can see in the floor plan below. We would like to open up the house, eliminating the walls between the kitchen, dining and living rooms, but that is a whole other discussion. We have baseboard hot water heater and central A/C with an air handler in the attic with the return in the hallway by the bedrooms. My only thought was adding a simple fan in the dining room and aiming it at the door between the dining room and kitchen, hoping some of that cold air will help the warm extend out of the family room (where it will typically get in the 80s very easily with a small burn).

I don't expect to heat the bedrooms as much as I would like to, but just trying to get more of the heat to the kitchen/dining/living room areas. Not to mention the family room becomes tough to sit in without falling asleep once it gets close to 80 .

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I would use a very small desktop fan and try setting it in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. You might even try a second one near that hallway and try to direct it so as to draw some air from both the living and the hallway. Whatever, don't use a big fan or you'll feel the draft too much and it won't help anyway. A small desktop fan on the floor and on the lowest setting should work well. When we've done this, we've used the small vornado fan and without measuring, I think it is only about 6" across.

 

[Oregon aloha]

If the house is not drafty it hard to get the air to move from room to room. One thing that works for us is to crack a window open on the far end of the house form the stove. Warm air takes up more space then cool air, so it will create a draft through your house pushing air out of the window, drawing the warmer air to the far end of the house.

 

[Pdog]

Thanks guys. Plan on the first burn this weekend, will try both and see what happens.

 

[Pdog]

The small fan in the dining room aimed at the kitchen door worked great. Temps were around 75 in the dining/living room, but 80 in the family room. I think I have to open this house up between the family room and kitchen because that heat is just knocking us out once it gets around 78+. . Doesn't take long either to hit those temps.

 

[begreen]

Is there a full, insulated basement? If so, I could see putting in an insulated duct that would pull cool air at the floor level from the bedroom hallway and blow it up into the stove room near the Jotul. It would need to be well insulated and of sufficient size to move about 200 cfm quietly.

 

[Pdog]

The basement is not insulated, any does not run under the stove room (the family room is next to the garage which is a slab foundation).