Looking for some advice

[Cliff2448]

I've been driving my self crazy with playing around with fans trying to move heat out of.my dinning room where my jotul f600 sits. Ive done a ton of searching around for ideas on the web and have tried countless ideas I've come.across. I have a pretty well insulated colonial at 2800sqft I've attached a picture of floor plan layout for referance currently I'm running a box fan in my.living room.blowing cold air across my kitchen floor towards my dining room.where my stove is. I have tried running this fan on high low and medium I do get some heat to move but I have t stat temps in the dinning room of 84 degrees and my den im hard pressed to get over 68 to 70 tops the two rooms are separated by my kitchen which is only 15 ft apart. The doorway from the dinning room to the kitchen has a header it is not a floor to celing opening. Same goes for kitchen to living room. The living room im.working to get warmer is 400sqft and its tight recently remodeled any one have any other recommendations or advice ? I'm curious if the doorway headers are causing convection issues

 

[Geoff C]

You could cut in some registers down low on the walls where the red x are to help try and make more of a convection loop. The low cold air will be able to make its way to the stove easier

 

[Corey]

Couple of key things - when trying to move heat like this, a 'ceiling plan' is almost as important as a floor plan. If you have any vaulted/raised ceilings, staircases, and yes, headerless vs headered doorways are all a consideration. You show a staircase right in the middle of the plan - is that open to the area and allowing a lot of heat up there?

Second, when moving air, you really want to create a thin sheet of air along the floor so cold air can enter the bottom of the doorway and hot air can spill out the top. With your fan being all the way across the kitchen, the air may be spreading out and hitting the kitchen/dining doorway more like a wall of air. At best, this may cause a lot of mixing/cooling of the air so it can't move as much heat. Or worst case, the whole doorway is subject to the same air blast so there is no cold-in / hot-out transfer.

You might have better luck with a small fan in (or very close to) the kitchen/dining doorway to get heat out of the dining room, and another small fan in /near the kitchen/living room doorway. But if you are looking to have the heat jump a 15ft kitchen space, couple of headered doorways and an open staircase, that might still be a tall order.

 

[Cliff2448]

Yes the staircase is open going upstairs . There is some heat that does make it's way upstairs I mostly believe the problem is getting the air moving out of the dinning room I can hang toilet paper in door ways and the air is moving the way I'd like it to move into the living room I just think I have a choking point with all of the hot air trying to move thru one door way. I do have a celing fan almost above the stove I have that blowing down onto the stove as well

 

[Cliff2448]

I think I may try a smaller concentrated fan instead of a box fan you may be onto somthing how its spreading out deflecting and mixing

 

[moresnow]

That's a tough layout for sure. The wall between the living room and back bedroom may benefit from one of these.

Tjernlund AS1 AireShare Room-To-Room Fan Ventilator, Hardwired, 70 CFM: Bathroom Fans: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

Maybe!

If you type in "wall pass through fan" on Amaz. you will find several versions. I'd mount it high on the wall where warm air naturally migrates.

Might be worth considering, to open things up.

 

[Cliff2448]

I wish I could open things up I just redid most of Downstairs my wife would shoot me lol but a pass thru fan would not be out of the question that could be feasible

 

[Corey]

Yes the staircase is open going upstairs . There is some heat that does make it's way upstairs I mostly believe the problem is getting the air moving out of the dinning room I can hang toilet paper in door ways and the air is moving the way I'd like it to move into the living room I just think I have a choking point with all of the hot air trying to move thru one door way. I do have a celing fan almost above the stove I have that blowing down onto the stove as well

Every setup will be a bit different, but for me, running a ceiling fan actually hurt my air distribution. I have to get heat from one end of a 70's 'rambling ranch' to the other. What seems to work best is to picture a 'conveyor belt' system. Cool air coming to the stove along the floor and hot air traveling out across the ceiling. ...and by 'hot', I mean easily in the 100F+ range (and likely dozens of degrees hotter than that in real 'cold weather' heating) leaving the stove room. This helps convey a decent amount of heat to the bedrooms all the way at the other end of the house.

When I ran the ceiling fan in the stove room, it churned up the air OK, but then the ceiling air leaving that room was more like 75-80F and by the time it made it to the next room, it was more like 65-70F, so not much hope of getting usable heat beyond that point. Turn off the ceiling fan and 120F air is spilling out of the stove room, 100+ into the next room, 80+ reaching the back of the house, etc. Remodeling a bit, to have flat ceiling with minimal door headers for the heat to 'jump', and no stair case also helps keep the hot air 'conveyor' moving.

 

[nortcan]

One important thing for air distribution is to find the natural air loop in your house. Scent stick is one of the best thing to **see** the natural air movement at different places different height...you should stop moving to let the scent stick fume stabilize, and that with the fan off.. Once you know a little more about the natural air loop, then you could try to boost it but then on the good side...and work with that air loop and not against it. But when doing a change (one at the time) it could take time to have that change spread all around the house and levels, you must be patient . Good luck

 

[Cliff2448]

So I decided to run with the celing fan off today and just a small.floor fan blowing across the kitchen floor towards the stove I'm going to see if the celing fan is causing to much mixing and not allowing the hot air to spill out of the doorway naturally. Next i may try a doorway fan up high blowing hot air out to try to help the heat escape the dinning room you can really feel a wall of heat between the kitchen and dinning room doorway.

 

[nortcan]

So I decided to run with the celing fan off today and just a small.floor fan blowing across the kitchen floor towards the stove I'm going to see if the celing fan is causing to much mixing and not allowing the hot air to spill out of the doorway naturally. Next i may try a doorway fan up high blowing hot air out to try to help the heat escape the dinning room you can really feel a wall of heat between the kitchen and dinning room doorway.

Some peoples just reversed the ceiling fan rotation and that made a good improvement. Cost nothing to try!

 

[Cliff2448]

Some peoples just reversed the ceiling fan rotation and that made a good improvement. Cost nothing to try!

Very true I have tried reversing to pull the hot air up and I've found this makes it worse for me I dont think it allows the hot air to drop down to get around the door headers. Unfourtently I think this is a big problem but being that they are structural walls with beams forming the headers on both door ways hands are tied I may try getting a room to room register and putting it In the back bedroom up high going into the living room my thought is I will get more hot air that way because the stair case is not there so in turn I can send cool air back across the kitchen floor making a loop with out challenging the natural hot air rises

 

[nortcan]

Very true I have tried reversing to pull the hot air up and I've found this makes it worse for me I dont think it allows the hot air to drop down to get around the door headers. Unfourtently I think this is a big problem but being that they are structural walls with beams forming the headers on both door ways hands are tied I may try getting a room to room register and putting it In the back bedroom up high going into the living room my thought is I will get more hot air that way because the stair case is not there so in turn I can send cool air back across the kitchen floor making a loop with out challenging the natural hot air rises

Here we have 3 floor levels, a super insulated house. The stove is on the first floor in the living room. The total is 2,100 s/ft to heat. The stove is in a faux foyer, a special unit in the basement removes the warm ais from inside the faux foyer and send more of the warm air to the basement. We have a central heat pump coupled to an air handler. The air handler runs 365/24/24 at low speed. Wood is heating the house levels almost always.
The temperature is the same in the basement and in the first floor : 23* C and about one degre less upstair : 22* C.
When I decided to get rid of the *very too hot* and inconfortable temperature in the living room and try to send some warm air somewhere else and specially in the basement, eveybody told me : you are crasy, it's impossible to send warm air down in a basement, warm air is always going upside not downside. It tooks me some times and a lot of scent sticks, some holes in the hardwood floor... but it's done.
The conclusion of that ?short ? story is : nothing is perfect in this world so all can be improved and also that : I'm crasy.

 

[nortcan]

I forgot to add the inst. photo. Last month I put the Castleton in the small living room for not very cold times and bring the Heritage in the faux-foyer. You can have an idea of what I talked about.

 

[Cliff2448]

Very nice setup for sure I love my jotul F600 been running it for 3 seasons now it's a great stove for sure I've invested thousands between the stove and liner etc I might as well do it right and invest in getting the efficiency out of it like you have done by investing the time into figuring out how the heat moves in the house

 

[nortcan]

Very nice setup for sure I love my jotul F600 been running it for 3 seasons now it's a great stove for sure I've invested thousands between the stove and liner etc I might as well do it right and invest in getting the efficiency out of it like you have done by investing the time into figuring out how the heat moves in the house

Good, we have a saying here ; Rome ne s'est pas bâtie en une journée! Cause Lagrange is a French word, you will prbably understand the saying. LOL.

 

[Cliff2448]

Good, we have a saying here ; Rome ne s'est pas bâtie en une journée! Cause Lagrange is a French word, you will prbably understand the saying. LOL.

Your right Rome was not built in a day hah

 

[Cliff2448]

So after some debating I think the most efficent and easiest way to get some heat into the living room would be going thru the back bedroom wall. With one of these (broken link removed) The living room is. Freshly remodeled 400sqft. This model is rated for 440sqft so I think I'll get enough air out of it to really circulate some heat. The bedroom.its pulling from is a constant 76 when the stove is running at 600 degrees does anyone have any experience with these thru wall fans is there performance actually what is claimed to be? I marked the install area with a red dot I'll install the fan so it pulls from.the bedroom into the living room which will then have a clear and easy way back to the stove via the kitchen floor. This should really form a nice loop

 

[gthomas785]

Is there a basement under this space? What I'm about to suggest is kinda involved but I bet it would work well. Put a register in the living room floor and run an insulated duct with a blower straight under and up into the dining room near the stove. Put it on a cooling thermostat to run when the dining room is over 75. That will distribute the air from the dining room through the kitchen to the living room.

 

[PA Mountain Man]

Is there a basement under this space? What I'm about to suggest is kinda involved but I bet it would work well. Put a register in the living room floor and run an insulated duct with a blower straight under and up into the dining room near the stove. Put it on a cooling thermostat to run when the dining room is over 75. That will distribute the air from the dining room through the kitchen to the living room.

Exactly what I was thinking. Keep the noisy fan in the basement area and not up on a wall.

 

[Cliff2448]

Acctually I can do that pretty darn simply off the top of my head I could do 2 of them if it did help with 1 thanks for the idea

 

[Cliff2448]

After kicking some ideas around for a temporary fix to heating the living room I was able to open a wall up going from the back bedroom into the kitchen next to the doorway going In to the living room so now I have a clear way for heat to come around from the dinning room with out competing with the stair case I backed my floor fan that's in the living room up and set it on low further from the entrance way Into the kitchen hopefully being able to draw the heat in from.the kitchen allow it to circulate before being pushed back out via the floor fan and not a damn bit of help that made. It's a wounderful 11 degrees here today and the furnace is screaming away. When we build our new home I think a woodburning furnace in the basment is going to be a thing. This is getting old lol