How will the heat transfer?

[pcampbell]

Give the correct sized stove with blower and room doors are left open, can I expect the heat to reach all areas of the living floor?

The stove would be placed in the living room likely in the lower right hand corner, but possibly in the lower left hand corner blowing straight into the kitchen. One of the wifes biggest complaints is cold bathroom!

I just threw this diagram together now because I figured it would help to understand the layout of the house. It is a "cape cod" and the living room is above the garage, but the kitchen is above the basement. House is on a hill. Not sure that really matters much

I measured about 715 sq ft of actual floor space, this is not counting closets and staircase (which has a door to it, by the way).

 

[begreen]

It's a small floorplan, so it should be easy to heat, but distribution through the central hallway will be a bit of a challenge. How well insulated is the house? The first floor will be warmer, but probably not nearly as warm as the living room. A ceiling fan in the living room will help distribute the heat, as would a blower on the stove.

Another thought is to add a small fan in the wall right outside the bedroom door. If it is blowing toward the stove, warm air will be pulled into the hallway.

 

[babalu87]

Is the house currently unfinished up?

Heat will want to go up those stairs. As BeGreen suggested, blowing cold air to the heat source works great.

Any way to knock out parts of walls or put a transom in? The L below the stairs between the Kitchen and Living room is in the way

 

[annette]

The closer the stove is to the center of the house, the easier it can heat the whole house--some heat will get to your bedroom through the wall, if you put the stove there. I do think it will also be easier to move the heat into the kitchen from the lower left spot, and you could install a little round vent fan into the wall near the stove to get heat into the bedroom. I think the office and bathroom are going to stay a lot colder. The little doorway-corner fans can help--you probably don't have room in your kitchen for a bigger fan. Bathrooms aren't used for long, so using an electric space heater isn't going to be a huge expense. I don't know about the office, though.

 

[Hogwildz]

Bathroom is questionable, the office & bedroom will benefit least from the stove, and will naturally be cooler than living room & kitchen.
In that small a square footage, circulation with fans & blower should be easier to achieve and should add a decent benefit.

 

[bmwloco]

You might consider a stove fan (I'm waiting for my stirling engined fan to arrive) and doorway fans to extend your heat range.

A reversed ceiling fan also helps circulate the air.

 

[pcampbell]

I ended up putting a Rinnai 21500 BTU direct vented gas heater in the office, in the corner by the closet by the stairs. It blows directly into the hallway. I can easily heat up the office to unbearable temps and the rest of the house gets some residual heat but the living room only to about 66F. It is 18 F outside right now. This is about as cold as it gets around these parts (Northern NJ). This is just with the blower built into the heater. I tried all kinds of things with ducts using a very powerful duct fan and nothing helped at all. In fact what works the best is setting the heater to 78 and just letting it slowly heat up the house.

Now, my biggest regret is not getting multiple smaller units and placing one in the living room but there's a few considerations. 1) They are ugly 2) They are expensive ($1000-1400 each) and 3) 3" holes in the wall for each unit.

One of the things that I think I could "get away" with is upgrading to the 38,000 BTU model and putting it in the same place. This is quite a bit of heat and I'm wondering if I can expect the larger unit to radiate the heat throughout the house so we can get the living room hotter. 70 would be ideal.

 

[pcampbell]

Any thoughts about how a 38,000 BTU heater in a single location will get the heat out compared to the 21,500 BTU. Obviously it will do it better, but the question is really whether it will do it well enough to be able to get away with only using this heater and not turning on the central energy wasting furnace. Right now 6 F outside (WOW!), 80 in here, 56 in the living room.