Circulating Heated Air

[Marcus]

How does everyone circulate hot air from their stove/insert into other areas of the house? I have found running the furnace fan useless. Even if there is hot air going directly into the air return intake, by the time it comes out in the rooms it has cooled to 68 degrees. Right now I am using two very loud Vornado fans. They work great in one part of the house, but the bedrooms are on a separate wing (we have a ranch) and I cannot get any significant amount of heated air back there.

 

[Corey]

I have a ranch as well...stove on one end, bedrooms on the other. First thing I do is shut down all ceiling fans as they disrupt the "river of hot air" flowing out along the ceiling. Second, I turn on the blower on the stove to get a large amount of fairly warm air out. Last, I have a 10" fan that sits on the mantle about 12-14" below the ceiling. This blows hot air to the rear of the house. So far (down to about -10F) that is all I have needed.

Some people put fans on the floor to blow cold air back to the stove and report good luck with that. I have not tried it as I would much rather have a strong draft of warm air coming out of the fan than the cold air blowing at my feet.

The main thing seems to be to picture the hot air flowing out along the ceiling and the cold air flowing to the stove along the floor, then take what ever steps are necessary to aid that flow. Also remember that large fans spinning slowly will be quieter than a small fan spinning fast. I don't know about the "vornado" but it does sound noisy!

HTH - Corey

 

[joshuaviktor]

Cozy, got some diagrams of the house, and pics if possible? Might be easier to help.

Joshua

 

[mikedengineer]

Just like Cozy says. I accomplished this by putting small (axial)fans at the top of the doorway leading to my bedroom and another one at the top of the door in the bedroom. This pulls the hot air in. I then place a box fan on the floor blowing the cold air out. This works beutifly for me. My stove is at the end of a 20 or so foot hallway. Those fans can be bought through Mcmaster carr or Radio shack.

-Mike

 

[Sundeep Arole]

Some people put fans on the floor to blow cold air back to the stove and report good luck with that. I have not tried it as I would much rather have a strong draft of warm air coming out of the fan than the cold air blowing at my feet.
HTH - Corey

I have tried this, and it works well. There will always be a differential in temp between where the stove is and the rest of the house, though. Closing the doors of unoccupied rooms helps as well.

 

[Marcus]

I will try some of those ideas, especially the fans at the top of the doorways. One problem is we have a baby and need to keep her bedroom door closed to keep the cats out at night. Our HVAC guy suggested running an air intake from high up on the wall of the room with the fireplace and having it blow into vents in the bedrooms through an in-line blower.

 

[Marcus]

I will try to draw and post our floor plan.

 

[Corey]

Something else that may come in handy is Home Depot Catalog # 100047556, Internet # 164175 which is a thru-wall fan. Don't know too much about it (such as noise, etc) but it seems like a nice, clean way to move heat between rooms. I was searching for replacement water filters when it popped up "You may also like..."

Corey

 

[mikedengineer]

I will try some of those ideas, especially the fans at the top of the doorways. One problem is we have a baby and need to keep her bedroom door closed to keep the cats out at night. Our HVAC guy suggested running an air intake from high up on the wall of the room with the fireplace and having it blow into vents in the bedrooms through an in-line blower.

Just a friendly reminder about smoke detectors. Make sure one is close enough to the stove (but not too close or else it may go off at an imoportune time) to alarm you to a problem. Like for me I have one in the hallway leading to my bedroom. So as the hot air, and smoke if there was a fire outside of the stove, is sensed by the detector. Also, while I'm bring it up have a carbon monoxide detector around.

Keep these in mind.

-Mike

 

[Marcus]

Here is a not to scale house drawing. The fan in the hallway near the front door and insert sends a good amount of heat into the office, dining room, kitchen, and even down the hall to the laundry room. Using another fan I have been unable to get much heat towards the side where the bedrooms are. The doorway between the front hall and wing with the bedrooms is small where as the hallway going towards the office is much larger and more open. It actually seems that when I have a fan blowing into that hall the air leaving those rooms blocks the warm air I am trying to blow down there. The turns keep any air from getting into any of the bedrooms. Thanks for any ideas!

 

[michaelthomas]

I live in a 2 story gambrel with a middle staircase. The previous owner had installed a passive vent in the ceiling of our laundry room. this vent exits about 8" up the wall in one of the bedrooms, across the room is a vent about 6 1/2' up the wall that exits into a vent 8" high in another bedroom and across this room is another high vent that exits low into another room. the stairwell is next to the master bedroom and there is a small balcony built over the stairs and a pocket door allowing access from the master bedroom onto the little balcony but more importantly allowing heat from the top of the stairwell to flow into our room. The guy said that by putting a box fan on the mantle behind the stove it would create a positive airflow that would force the warmed air through this passive venting system. I believe it works pretty well. The heat in the main house has only kicked on a half a dozen times this winter.

 

[the_guad]

Marcus, it looks like you have a problem since you're trying to direct air in two directions. If you have a fan at either end of the hallway then the air can only go one way. I would try an oscillating fan on the wall opposite the door and see if you can get some air circulating with it.

 

[Todd]

Its going to be tough getting heat to those far away bedrooms. Remember wood stoves are space heaters not whole house heaters unless you have a open floor plan. Have you tried putting a box fan on the floor near the beroom/ bathroom area blowing toward the stove?

 

[Marcus]

Oscillating fan in the hallway won't work because there is not enough room. I found that while the one wing is staying warm, there is a river of air flowing from the other wing towards the insert. The flow of air is at ground level and also all the way up to the ceiling, so warmer and colder air are both being sucked out of the bedrooms. I'm going to try keeping the doors closed for a day and the fan on the floor blowing towards the insert.

Anyone think that having an air intake high up on the room wall that has the inset and having an inline blower blowing the air under the floor and into the otehr rooms would help at all?