Ceiling fan

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
  • Hope everyone has a wonderful and warm Thanksgiving!
  • Super Cedar firestarters 30% discount Use code Hearth2024 Click here
Status
Not open for further replies.

Forrest77

New Member
Aug 17, 2014
13
OH
For those with a ceiling fan in the room where your stove is, do you set the fan so the air is pulled up or air pushing down?
 
When I am heating my house, the fan is set to pull the air up towards the ceiling. The fan blades spin clockwise. I reverse them (counter clockwise) when it is cooling season.
 
Yah, thats what I am doing now but wasn't sure if that was best practice. Im a wood insert newbie learning more each visit to the forum. My next challenge is to get the air flowing through the doorways without fans everywhere. I have a 2 year old that grabs everything and twins due in about 2 weeks.

We live in a tri-level and the stove is at the east side of the house facing west to the rest of the house. We have a gas furnace and using the stove to heat the living areas on the main level and let the gas furnace heat the lower level and upper level where the bedrooms are.
 
My stove sits in an area in the basement where I have a drop down from the ceiling where my HVAC ducting runs. So I use the ceiling fan over the stove on normal to push the heat down so it gets past that area and can then migrate throughout the house.

I have also been experimenting with using my HVAC system with the fan only mode. I'm not trying to suck heat from the stove area and push it to other parts of the house though. Im using it more like a cold air return system, where I have most of the ducts in the house closed down to quarter open. Cold air returns are completely unobstructed, and vents near stove and adjoining area wide open. The cool air from the returns gets circulated into the system and dumped out the vents in the stove area which displaces the warm air out of the area and helps it migrate to the rest of the house. Its been working well so far for my shoulder season burns. I only have a couple degree difference from floor to floor and room to room. Just barely noticeable. This at least makes sense in my head anyway.
 
I'm from the whatever works for you camp. My family room where the stove is is wide open up to an 18' flat ceiling that then spills over to an open loft area. Works really well for keeping that entire 2nd floor warm with no added effort. The ceiling fan is also at that high ceiling over the family room. I draw air upwards the majority of the time.
The other side of the coin though is with that high ceiling area, all the heat goes mostly straight up and doesn't reach out into the family room. It's great because it doesn't cook us out but if it's really cold outside, I want the heat coming my way while watching the Broncos so I'll reverse that fan to blow that hot air back down on us.
 
Last edited:
I'm from the whatever works for you camp.

Yeah, me too. I've done all kinds of experimenting and for me, I prefer the fan blowing up for two reasons; it seems to distribute the heated air better and if I let it blow downward it makes an uncomfortable draft. The theory is that blowing up takes the warmer air and pushes it toward the outer walls and down which works for me. But its's easy to experiment and see what you like.
 
We also prefer the ceiling fan in the stove room and the great room next to it pulling the air up and then moving it down the walls to the floor. With a large crawl space under our home, it works for us. Actually helps to warm up the (normally cold) hard wood floors in the other rooms of the house.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.