How would you best place fans for this tricky woodstove placement to move heat upstairs?

[YoAdrian]

So here is a crude drawing. The woodstove is a giant harman located in the basement and can heat the whole 1300 sq ft basement to 85° in an hour. The issue I am having is the upstairs living room (right above woodstove in basement) is only hovering around 68° and the kitchen even cooler.

I think the problem is no air movement but the path from stove to upstairs is tricky. I am looking for advice on best fan placement to help this. If you look at the image I drew the shortest path from the woodstove to the upstairs living room. There are walls around the staircase so the air does have to go around those corner, it cannot cut straight through.

I was wondering what the best fan placement setup would be to get the upstairs warmer. The fan at spot #1 could be on the ground in the basement level but the air still has a long way to go to make it around the staircase and upstairs. The fan at spot 2 could only be mounted above the doorway to the basement otherwise it would be in the way. I am not sure if fans up high help? Finally I thought about cutting a hole in the wall for fan #3 but figured that may not work because I would need to cut an additional hole that is left empty so the warm air could replace the cold I'm blowing out.

Any suggestions welcome! No vents or ducts in the house. It has electric baseboard as a backup but I feel like the woodstove should be able to handle this.

 

[Ludlow]

Run a couple round ducts in the joist cavities with duct blowers to upstairs. Not hard or expensive but will work really well. No other way around it.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Inductor-8-in-In-Line-Duct-Booster-Fan-DB208/100080191

 

[yooper08]

Try putting a fan at the bottom the stairs blowing towards the stove. It's a cheap, easy test if you already have a fan.

 

[YoAdrian]

Run a couple round ducts in the joist cavities with duct blowers to upstairs. Not hard or expensive but will work really well. No other way around it.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Inductor-8-in-In-Line-Duct-Booster-Fan-DB208/100080191

I do not want to cut holes between the main floor and basement.

 

[bholler]

Run a couple round ducts in the joist cavities with duct blowers to upstairs. Not hard or expensive but will work really well. No other way around it.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Inductor-8-in-In-Line-Duct-Booster-Fan-DB208/100080191

That is not safe or legal. It many times pulles a vacume in the area of the stove leading to problems

 

[bholler]

I do not want to cut holes between the main floor and basement.

Try a box fan blowing down the stairs

 

[YoAdrian]

Try a box fan blowing down the stairs

Is it okay if it would be mounted to the ceiling of the staircase pointing down? Because of layout there is no where else to put it and have it blowing directly downstairs.

 

[Ludlow]

That is not safe or legal. It many times pulles a vacume in the area of the stove leading to problems

Can you post a link? I have heard they cant be directly above or closer than X, but not outright prohibited. Other than that I dont see a box fan doing much of anything to get the heat upstairs. Blowing a box fan directly at a stove can be a problem as well.

 

[kborndale]

I have a basement install and and having a fan blow cold air down the stairs makes a huge difference on the amount of heat that comes up the stairs.

 

[Ludlow]

I have a basement install and and having a fan blow cold air down the stairs makes a huge difference on the amount of heat that comes up the stairs.

Is the fan at floor level or ceiling? I tried a fan in the stairs to try to heat the upstairs from my basement direct vent gas fireplace and it actually did better without the fan. Seemed like the fan counteracted the natural convection in my case. What works for me is that there is no obstruction in the ceiling plane from the fireplace to the stairwell. Heat runs across ceiling and rushes up stairs naturally.

 

[begreen]

Is the stairwell enclosed or open? If enclosed, could the stove facing wall be opened with a large framed opening?

 

[YoAdrian]

Is the stairwell enclosed or open? If enclosed, could the stove facing wall be opened with a large framed opening?

The stairway is enclosed and I have thought about doing that. I just don't know if it would help. Like I could remove the wall that faces the stove at the first right angle of the stairs going down.

 

[bholler]

Is it okay if it would be mounted to the ceiling of the staircase pointing down? Because of layout there is no where else to put it and have it blowing directly downstairs.

No you want it on the floor blowing the cooler air down the stairs and the warmer air will naturally travel up above it.

 

[bholler]

Can you post a link? I have heard they cant be directly above or closer than X, but not outright prohibited. Other than that I dont see a box fan doing much of anything to get the heat upstairs. Blowing a box fan directly at a stove can be a problem as well.

Not right now i will find it later. You could look it up. It can work well if you do it the other direction and it doesnt have the safety issues pulling air from the basement does. Technically i beleive they would need fire dampers in them still.

 

[kborndale]

Is the fan at floor level or ceiling? I tried a fan in the stairs to try to heat the upstairs from my basement direct vent gas fireplace and it actually did better without the fan. Seemed like the fan counteracted the natural convection in my case. What works for me is that there is no obstruction in the ceiling plane from the fireplace to the stairwell. Heat runs across ceiling and rushes up stairs naturally.

I have a small freestanding fan sitting on the top stair blowing down. I only need to use it when it gets down to the teens or lower. I also removed the wall on the stove side of the stairs which made a big improvement on the amount of heat making it up the stairs.

 

[kborndale]

The stairway is enclosed and I have thought about doing that. I just don't know if it would help. Like I could remove the wall that faces the stove at the first right angle of the stairs going down.

opening up the stairwell on the stove side help me out an awful lot to get more heat upstairs.

 

[Ludlow]

It can work well if you do it the other direction and it doesnt have the safety issues pulling air from the basement does. Technically i beleive they would need fire dampers in them still.

That is a great idea. Run them in reverse. Might work even better actually.

 

[YoAdrian]

Seems like the best course of action is to redo the stairs so they come straight down from the basement door and have no walls but a railing instead.

 

[bholler]

That is a great idea. Run them in reverse. Might work even better actually.

It does work better without the safety risks.

 

[Ludlow]

Making the open stairwell at the top like @kborndale did seems like to way to go. I can see how the fan works in his case. The open wall at the top made an easy path for the warm air to escape the stairwell. The fan wouldnt counteract the convection with the large opening up high, it would only help the cold air falling down. Win win.

 

[bholler]

Seems like the best course of action is to redo the stairs so they come straight down from the basement door and have no walls but a railing instead.

Yes you may still need a fan blowing down but it will work much better.

 

[begreen]

The stairway is enclosed and I have thought about doing that. I just don't know if it would help. Like I could remove the wall that faces the stove at the first right angle of the stairs going down.

The situation is not ideal and needs help. The less resistance for warm air trying to convect upstairs, the better. Ideally it would be large enough to allow warm air to convect upward at the top of the opening and cool air to return at the bottom of the opening. There is a finite amount of air that can be moved this way, but it then could assisted by having a box fan at the bottom of the opening blowing toward the stove on low speed.

 

[YoAdrian]

The situation is not ideal and needs help. The less resistance for warm air trying to convect upstairs, the better. Ideally it would be large enough to allow warm air to convect upward at the top of the opening and cool air to return at the bottom of the opening. There is a finite amount of air that can be moved this way, but it then could assisted by having a box fan at the bottom of the opening blowing toward the stove on low speed.

Rather than have an opening at the first bend where the landing is I think I could just have the stairs go straight down. The wall would end where the X is and the rest open. Then I could have a fan near the bottom pointing at the wood stove.

 

[barnaclebob]

I might be tempted to put a small fan on the floor of the mid stair landing blowing downstairs. That's probably where the most restriction is to creating a convective loop. I also think its possible that lower power fans will work better than a box fan blasting a ton of air. If you stir up the air too much it will mix together and not form a convective loop.

Convection is very powerful when it is setup right. There is a room connected to my stove room that we normally keep closed. It started getting warm so we opened the door to that room. You could feel cool air pouring over your legs on the couch like 15 feet away.

Another option could be to use the duct boosters and flex duct in the stairway.

 

[YoAdrian]

I might be tempted to put a small fan on the floor of the mid stair landing blowing downstairs. That's probably where the most restriction is to creating a convective loop. I also think its possible that lower power fans will work better than a box fan blasting a ton of air. If you stir up the air too much it will mix together and not form a convective loop.

Convection is very powerful when it is setup right. There is a room connected to my stove room that we normally keep closed. It started getting warm so we opened the door to that room. You could feel cool air pouring over your legs on the couch like 15 feet away.

Another option could be to use the duct boosters and flex duct in the stairway.

Any keywords to search for when looking for a low speed fan? Searching for low power is just about energy efficiency and nothing comes up for low speed.