Installing an interior door upstairs, have a wood stove downstairs. How to set it up?

[area_man]

I'm having a dutch door installed at the top of the stairs for safety reasons related to the raising of toddlers. My wood stove and bedroom are downstairs, the cold toddlers are upstairs. I want to use the door to facilitate the exchange of heat from downstairs to upstairs. Having the top part open helps with heat traveling up, but I want to make it easier for the cold air to drain down.

I used to balance a box fan on a folding chair in the hallway, but the hallways are kind of narrow and it was a pain to get it all worked out. I was thinking, what if I cut a hole in the door and installed a fan IN the door pointed down the stairs? I would definitely have to nail some chicken wire over the opening to keep out curious little fingers, but what if I could mount one of those two-fan boxes in the door?

The door will open into the hallway rather than opening across the stairs, so it won't limit how the door opens or closes.

Maybe it would be better to put a hinged door in the bottom half that I could cut to fit a circulator fan when I wanted to use it, and take it out when I don't. For a good chunk of the year I would just block it off, and when it's cold I could take off the piece and install the fan.

The fan makes a huge difference in the temperature balance in the house. If I just installed a grate it would help a little, but not much. My other options for draining cold air to the basement are thousands of dollars. This could be a $100 solution. Thoughts?

 

[Nick Mystic]

It sounds like it is worth a try. You could always get hold of a large piece of cardboard (discarded large cardboard box) and do a mock up of the bottom half of a door with a small fan cut into it. That way if it doesn't work as well as you hope you will save yourself the trouble of cutting a hole in the door. Good luck.

 

[begreen]

The toddlers will grow up soon. How about using a latchable safety gate at the top of the stairs in the interim?
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Cardinal-Gates-Autolock-Child-Safety-Gate-White/30253042

 

[Grisu]

Since you already know that the fan is working in moving the cold air down and getting warm air up, I guess your idea has a good chance of being successful. What I would not like is the idea of installing the fan into the door and just putting wire over the opening. You would have to make the individual openings pretty tight to not allow small fingers to slip through, potentially impeding the air flow of the fan. In addition, I am not sure if I would install permanent doors when your toddlers will quickly outgrow their need. Putting a latchable gate like BG linked to and placing the fan one or two feet further down the stairs may get you the same effect with less hassle.

 

[Soundchasm]

The wife would never go for it, but what about a screen door? You just want to block easy access, and not something like a bank vault door, right?

 

[SteveKG]

Sounds fine to me. I would use quarter-inch hardware cloth instead of chicken wire, but otherwise I am thinking this idea is fine.

 

[area_man]

Got the Dutch door installed today. This week I'm going to slam it and play with it and work it out to see how it does. We might have to rehang it if the hinges don't loosen up a little bit. The handyman is real nervous about cutting out the hole for the fan, but I'm confident it's going to work. Finding a way to divert the airflow down to parallel with the staircase is going to be interesting. I could use plastic or wood or sheet metal, but I want to be able to remove it if I want to. Otherwise, I'll be cutting my shins every time I walk past the doorway with the door open.

So far so good though! I'm using the Bionaire double fan from Costco. It's got a thermostat setting where I can have the fan automatically come on if the temperature is in a certain range. It would automatically suck the cold air down the stairs, and I can leave the top part of the door open for hot air return. AFAIK, this is a unique installation. I'll post pics next week when the plan comes together.

 

[area_man]

The wife would never go for it, but what about a screen door? You just want to block easy access, and not something like a bank vault door, right?

I wish that was the case, but I have a really impulsive 4-year-old who does not respond to voice commands in a timely manner. If she wanted to stick her face to the front of a 700* wood stove, me yelling STOOOOOP would not do the trick. The lock on this door is the equivalent to the lock on a gun safe. We also have things on that floor that just can't be made childproof. The deadbolt on the door is childproof, I can trust that she won't figure out how to pick the lock before she's 12.

The brackets that will hold the fan in place are construction-grade stainless steel, and will hold it in front and back. This should be a really strong door with solid functionality for distributing heat from the basement to the upstairs. I really can't wait to post some pics, it should be interesting to hear everybody's comments.

Next weekend we finish the door and see how it does.

 

[area_man]

I got it. Magnets, how do THEY work??? We'll find out next Saturday. I can install a strip of magnets around the fans, and another set on the ceiling of the staircase that matches the slope. Sheet metal diverter that sticks to the magnets on the door and on the doorframe above the door. I'm not describing this well, that's OK. Next week I'll have some pics to post.

 

[SteveKG]

Just came home from Massachusetts, where my wife is staying in her late brother's home for a while. There are two of those Costco Bionaire fans in windows. They work fine in small rooms and will probably do the trick for you. You can set them to have one blow in and one out, or both same direction. We find they don't move a lot of air, and some people really complain about this. But in your case, moving a lot of air probably isn't the issue.

The thermostat function works from a digital thermometer. From what I saw at the Mass. house, and what I've read in customer reviews, the thermometer/thermostat is not accurate at all. We tested ours the other day, side-by-side, and one thermometer read 75 F. and the other 63 F. So we had to custom-set the thermostats by experimentation to get the fans all to come on at the same temp'. However, that shouldn't be a problem for you, just experiment some.

Your carpenter might have been leery about cutting the hole because the fan housing is fairly wide. But even if he has to beef up the door panel, it sounds as if you are getting to a good solution.