Hey all, prepping to have my wood insert installed in the fireplace. I’d like to get the most use out of it of course and I’m just wondering if it’s worth using fans to move the warm air around the house, or if it’s more work then it’s worth generally to try to blow air around. Is it common practice to do this? Thanks!
Moving Air?
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brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
Depends on the house...but its certainly not uncommon! With high ceilings you'll need to run a ceiling fan in winter mode for sure
We don't run our stove without running the ceiling fan for circulation. If we forget to turn the fan on you can tell as the back TV room is cool, turn the fan on and it's warm.
You'll definitely want a fan on the insert to get heat out. As others have said, other fans depend a bit on the house layout. But I have found even a very small ~6" fan on the floor is enough to get the convection flowing and move a lot of heat. The big key - at least for me is keeping a 'sheet' of cold air moving along the floor, and a similar sheet of warm air moving along the ceiling. If I block either one of those, or use a big fan, the air gets too 'stirred up' and can't effectively move heat.
The insert has a blower, so getting the heat away from the unit should be ok, I’ll just want to make sure it reaches as far into the house as it can.
Like previously stated, small fans in the farthest reaches blowing cool air toward the stove/insert...
We have tried both blowing warm air away from the stove and cool air toward the stove and blowing cool air toward the stove made the most difference.
Very interesting! I gave up trying to spread the heat with fans and planned to get a space heater or just avoid the cold rooms this winter. Maybe my fans were just too big or aimed wrong creating turbulence. I'll try a little fan down on the floor this winter, thanks for the tip!
Give it a shot. It always helps me to think of pouring out buckets of water in the coldest part of the house... how would that flow across the floor back to the stove room and how can I help it along. Or picture the house upside down and pouring buckets of water on the ceiling in the stove room... how would that spread out and get to the back end of the house. Rivers of hot and cold air.
One year I built a roaring fire, but was having a notably hard time getting heat to the back end of the house. Then I realized that a stack of Christmas presents, plus coffee table plus an ottoman were creating a pretty effective air dam. So rearranging all that got the air flowing again and restored the heat!
I actually preferred to use a small fan at the ceiling to move hot air out. That way I didn't have to walk through the cold draft from the fan on the floor. But after a couple years use, the fan at the ceiling left a 'dust smudge' / dust trail on the ceiling. At least any traces from the fan on the floor are easy to vacuum / dust mop away!
One year I built a roaring fire, but was having a notably hard time getting heat to the back end of the house. Then I realized that a stack of Christmas presents, plus coffee table plus an ottoman were creating a pretty effective air dam. So rearranging all that got the air flowing again and restored the heat!
I actually preferred to use a small fan at the ceiling to move hot air out. That way I didn't have to walk through the cold draft from the fan on the floor. But after a couple years use, the fan at the ceiling left a 'dust smudge' / dust trail on the ceiling. At least any traces from the fan on the floor are easy to vacuum / dust mop away!
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