How do you recirculate warm air to other rooms?

[evilgriff]

By the way, I stumbled onto this site by accident-great site. After reading the threads here about my stove I am feeling real lucky that I happened to purchase a good one and not a dog- I bought mine about 4 years ago. I love it, only wish it would burn just a little longer, and really hate when I measure that log just a little to long. I have a small one story cape and was wondering if there is a fan/register for inbetween rooms to help recirculate the air. Also, does anyone have the screen for the intrepid II Cat stove and do they like to use it?
Steve

 

[Jabberwocky]

Welcome.

I've heard some positive comments about tower fans as far as the volume of air they move. I have a pellet stove and have the same issue. I'm getting 74 degrees in the stove room and about 68 elsewhere on the same level. I'm figuring that this differential will get worse as the sub zero weather hits due to cold panes of glass and normal heat loss. I have a ceiling fan going in the stove room and I'm debating how fast to run that sucker.

There are little corner door jam fans out there but they tend to be expensive and don't move much air.

If you occupy a colder room consider blowing the cold air out of the room so as to not experience a cooling effect. I read that trick here and will experiment with it in the coming months.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

We have a ceiling fan in the stove room plus a Vornado fan to move the air down the hallway. Seems to work good for us as we've been doing this for years with no problems. The bedroom is the furthest from the stove so is a few degrees cooler, which is okay, but the difference in temperature is not great. Sometimes we open a window in the bedroom to make it cooler for sleeping and other activities.

 

[Corey]

I have one small (5") fan up near the ceiling about 1/2 way back in my ranch house. It's the worst configuration with the stove at one end and bedrooms at the opposite. But that fan does the trick. It doesn't seem to take much, just a bit to get the air moving in the right direction.

This years project was to attempt to combine one of those flexible necks with a light socket and the fan to make a device that would screw into a ceiling light and have the fan on the flexible neck to blow air in what ever direction is needed.

Corey

 

[Todd]

I use a couple 4" doorway fans I found on E-Bay. They are very quiet and put out 50cfm a piece. I can keep my upstairs and downstairs within 5 degrees of each.

 

[wahoowad]

Blow cold air into the room with the stove. it will displace the warmed air and force it to circulate into other rooms.

 

[rdrcr56]

We have a small fan on top of the china hutch blowing warm air to the back bedroom and another small fan in the back bedroom blowing along the floor to help circulate the warm air.

 

[rmcfall]

What about when the stove is in a room with vaulted ceilings? So much hot air gets trapped at the top of the ceiling. If there were ductwork run from the ceilings of the bedrooms to the top of the vaulted ceiling room with the stove, would it be best to blow air INTO the ceiling of the vaulted room, or draw hot air FROM the ceiling of the vaulted room?

 

[senorFrog]

I just run my ceiling fan to distribute the heat evenly in the room with the stove, which happens to be vaulted. Then blow cold air from adjacent room. I might try the doorway fans because they are less obtrusive than large fan in the doorway.

 

[rmcfall]

I've tried running my ceiling fan, but a lot of air still seems to get trapped at ceiling level. The room with the vaulted ceiling goes from 8 ft to about 16 ft in height, whereas the adjacent room has a ceiling height of a little less than eight feet. My floorplan is open, so the opening between the vaulted room and the kitchen/dining area is about 25 feet wide, 8 feet high. Even though it is so open, it is amazing how warm the vaulted room with the stove stays compared to the kitchen/dining areas. If nothing else, it would just be nice to equalize the temperature in these areas. I've got total access to the upper wall of the vaulted ceiling room from the attic above the kitchen/dining areas, so I could easily run ducts to the kitchen/dining areas, as well as the bedrooms.

 

[wahoowad]

rmcfall - I have the same setup as you. I was able to get more of that warm air into the rest of the house by putting a small box fan on the floor and let it blow cold air into the room with the stove. Think about it - that warm air in your stove room has no reason to go anywhere so you just keep warming up that same volume of air. But start forcing a 100 cfm of cold air into that room and viola! you start displacing 100 cfm of that warm air. it will spill into your other room through the tops of the doorways or whatever openings you have. Tape a piece of tinsel or light ribbon at the top of the door and watch it flow.

 

[GVA]

I've tried running my ceiling fan, but a lot of air still seems to get trapped at ceiling level. The room with the vaulted ceiling goes from 8 ft to about 16 ft in height, whereas the adjacent room has a ceiling height of a little less than eight feet. My floorplan is open, so the opening between the vaulted room and the kitchen/dining area is about 25 feet wide, 8 feet high. Even though it is so open, it is amazing how warm the vaulted room with the stove stays compared to the kitchen/dining areas. If nothing else, it would just be nice to equalize the temperature in these areas. I've got total access to the upper wall of the vaulted ceiling room from the attic above the kitchen/dining areas, so I could easily run ducts to the kitchen/dining areas, as well as the bedrooms.

I wonder if you were to put a corner cube or two up at the top of that vaulted ceiling it would move the air..(cool it a little and that airmass drops down in the room)
Remember you need to destratify the air.... That is you need to move it..... Speed is a factor, move it..... but move it slower.... Ceiling fans which direction blow up or down? that is a debate that I'm sure will follow... But in my opinion all ceiling fans run too fast even at the lowest speed... But they do help...

 

[rmcfall]

I'd prefer to avoid having door fans on the floor, which I why I wouldn't object to running ductwork to blow air into the room. From the sounds of it, blowing air into the stove room would be better than drawing air from the stove room.

Putting some fans up high would be another option, and relatively easy to do. I would just need to run some electric up there...

 

[GVA]

Here is a quick link to industrial fans and how the speed can affect how the air actually feels..as well as destratification.....Though I doubt you will put one of these in your home.......I still love the name ;-P
(broken link removed to http://www.bigassfans.com/howitworks.php)

 

[rmcfall]

I just had a thought...if all I need to do is introduce cooler air into the vaulted room with the stove, and as long as it doesn't matter where the cooler air comes from, I could pull air from our basement (which is finished) and let it out at the top of the 16 foot wall of the room with the vaulted ceilings. There is a bedroom closet adjacent to the vaulted room. I could easily run a duct from the floor level of the basement up through the bedroom closet and into the attic and to the top of the vaulted room. Would this as good or better than pulling cool air via ducts from the more distant bedrooms? Is all that is needed is to introduce cool air to push the warm/hot air down from the vaulted ceiling and out of the room? Will the air still disperse to the other rooms without air being pulled from those same rooms?

 

[rmcfall]

Thanks for the link. So it isn't the speed at which air is moved, but how much.

Here is a Q&A;from the site...

Q. How do I reverse the fan?
A. The fans are not designed to be reversed. The airfoil design of the fan blades is only efficient in one direction, just like the wings on an airplane. The volume of air moved by a reversed fan is only a fraction of that fan's rated volume.

I've always run my fans on reverse in the winter. I may have to try running them forward instead.

 

[GVA]

Thanks for the link. So it isn't the speed at which air is moved, but how much.

Here is a Q&A;from the site...

Q. How do I reverse the fan?
A. The fans are not designed to be reversed. The airfoil design of the fan blades is only efficient in one direction, just like the wings on an airplane. The volume of air moved by a reversed fan is only a fraction of that fan's rated volume.

I've always run my fans on reverse in the winter. I may have to try running them forward instead.

Well I've run mine both directions and it just seem to be a difference of cooling the room in reverse and then making it cooler in forward.. I dunno... But thier argument seems to be a valid one

 

[cogger]

Not all the time but sometimes I use a 8in" condenser fan from a old REFRIGERATOR and hang it in the threshold. VERY QUIET!! Now if my wife does not catch her hair in it we'll be fine

 

[Corey]

Thanks for the link. So it isn't the speed at which air is moved, but how much.

Here is a Q&A;from the site...

Q. How do I reverse the fan?
A. The fans are not designed to be reversed. The airfoil design of the fan blades is only efficient in one direction, just like the wings on an airplane. The volume of air moved by a reversed fan is only a fraction of that fan's rated volume.

I've always run my fans on reverse in the winter. I may have to try running them forward instead.

Well I've run mine both directions and it just seem to be a difference of cooling the room in reverse and then making it cooler in forward.. I dunno... But thier argument seems to be a valid one

I think this is referring to fans with a true 'airfoil' blade - often bigger industrial fans and purpose-built smaller fans. Most any ceiling fan blade I have seen is a simple slab of wood bolted to the motor at a slight angle. It will be the same efficiency (relatively low) in either direction. I have also seen old box fans with simple metal plates for blades - these work in forward or reverse, too (although they usually don't have that option). Some of the newer fans with plastic "curved" blades do have some 'airfoil' shape built in and don't work too well in reverse, but again - the fan doesn't have a 'reverse' option. Basically, I would say, 'If it has a reverse switch, use it as you need to'

Corey

 

[WarmGuy]

I made and installed a bracket above a door that holds a heavy-duty desk fan upside down. Works fine.

 

[rmcfall]

So is the introduction of cool air into the room all that is needed? So would introducing cool air from the basement be just as good as pulling it from the bedrooms? Or does the air need to leave the bedrooms in order to make room for warmer air to replace it?

 

[Cluttermagnet]

So is the introduction of cool air into the room all that is needed? So would introducing cool air from the basement be just as good as pulling it from the bedrooms? Or does the air need to leave the bedrooms in order to make room for warmer air to replace it?

I believe you definitely need to move the cold air out of the rooms you wish to heat. Your last sentence above is 100 percent correct IMO.

 

[Riegel]

I've tried box fans, large industrial fans that were very noisy and then I bought a Blower Fan. Check out the attached link. This style fan has worked the best for me. It can move a large volume of air quickly and it's not noisy. It has a small footprint so it doesn't take up a lot of room in a doorway or hallway. I picked mine up at Lowe's for about $35.00. It works great in the summer as well.

My stove is in the back of the house. The room with the stove can get in the 80's if I don't circulate from front to back of the house. When I use the Blower Fans I can take the front room from 62 to 68 and keep the back room in the mid 70's. I also follow the same rule on pushing the cooler air toward the room with the stove.

(broken link removed to http://www.laskoproducts.com/fans/model_4900.html)

 

[Lumber-Jack]

I have three lines of defense, first I always leave my forced air furnace fan on low which redistributes the air throughout the house, second I have a ceiling fan in the stove room which helps mix things up in there, third I have a 8" ducted fan installed above the passage way leading from the stove room to the rest of my house. This ducted fan sucks the warm air from the 10 ft ceiling in the stove room, via a elbow, and blows it at a downward angle to the center point of the rest of the house. This center point is at the bottom of the stairs leading to the upstairs floor and is also where one of the main cold air return ducts are. This ducted fan helps significantly relieve the hot air stratification that builds up in the 10ft ceiling in the stove room. That is one of the weaknesses of fans on the ground blowing cold air towards the stove have, although they certainly can help with the natural flow in a house with low ceilings, they don't help much with warm air that stratifies in rooms with tall ceilings.

 

[JotulOwner]

I have used fans (ceiling and floor), registers (even powered by fans), but I have found that the most effective way to move heat to other rooms (including floors above), is simply to open a window in the stove room. How much it is opened is governed by temps outside and inside. It works for me, but the climate here is less severe than some of you experience.