Moving that nice pellet heated air around the house...

[LJ4174]

OK, so I had a post about this yesterday and somehow it didn't post, so here goes...

I've been burning my Quadrafire Mt. Vernon stove since Saturday, so just about a week now. I'm very happy with it. My only issue I'm having is getting the warm air into my MB and my daughter's bedroom upstairs. My MB is directly above the family room where we have the stove at. My daughter's bedroom is just across the hall/stairs from our bedroom. I have a 2 story stairwell and a 2 story foyer and the floor plan is very open. I don't feel a temp change at the top of the stairs, just when I walk into our bedroom and my daughter's room, is when it feels chilly. Yesterday it was a 4-6 degree temp difference in our room, my daughters room was probably a little colder.

So my question is, how do you all move the air around your houses? I really can't and don't want to put ceiling fans in my downstairs for a few reasons. My living room and and family room have no ceiling mounted lights and I really don't want to go through the hassle and mess of installing them. The other downstairs rooms are the kitchen, with recessed lights, attached to the eat in kitchen with a chandalier and then the dining room with a chandalier. My foyer also has a chandalier... Regarding the ceiling fans, my hallway upstairs is about 5' - 6' wide, maybe 14 ish feet long. If I were to put a ceiling fan towards the center of the hallway, would that make a difference in circulating the air upstairs...

My 2 neighbors, 1 has the same stove as me, the other one has a wood stove. They got these fans and vents for in their walls, put them towards their ceiling to pull air into various bedrooms. Anyone else use these? If so, what results???

Thanks for any suggestions...

LJ

 

[Garry P]

The only way I could get the upstairs bedrooms to heat up was by blowing the cold air out of them. I put a small fan in the bottom of the doorway blowing out into the hall. That allowed them to heat up about 4 or 5 degrees each.

 

[drtnshtr]

The only way I could get the upstairs bedrooms to heat up was by blowing the cold air out of them. I put a small fan in the bottom of the doorway blowing out into the hall. That allowed them to heat up about 4 or 5 degrees each.

That is exactly how I do it with the same results...

 

[sinnian]

You own a space heater (pellet stove), not a central heater (pellet boiler). Moving air around will help, but there will always be a disparity. Buy some electric space heaters for the rooms that are colder is really your only option.

 

[LJ4174]

The only way I could get the upstairs bedrooms to heat up was by blowing the cold air out of them. I put a small fan in the bottom of the doorway blowing out into the hall. That allowed them to heat up about 4 or 5 degrees each.

That is exactly how I do it with the same results...

Hmmmmm... Interesting... So do you keep the door open? What kind of fan? Like a regular cooling fan you'd use in the summer???

 

[drtnshtr]

a box fan is what I use..I actually use a couple of them. If you have a hall way with bedrooms just put the fan at the end of the hallway closest to the stove and point it toward the stove. This pulls the cool air out and allows the warm air to enter. when I do not use a fan at the bottom of my stairway I notice a "wall" of cold air when entering the stairway...this cold air is heavier than the warm air and not allowing it to enter. If you put the fan at the lowest point facing it out into the warm room the warm air will go right over the cool air coming out. It does work!

 

[Garry P]

He's right, it does work, but also as the other poster said, it will not make the whole place 75 degrees like the stove room. But four or five degrees from low sixtys to mid sixtys is quite nice for bedrooms.

 

[sinnian]

I would look at the cost of running the box fans versus oil filled electric heaters, you may be better off with the heaters.

 

[control1]

Most of the work has been done by the stove it probably got your house up to an average 65 degrees so what I do is turn on the oil heat for a 1/2 hour to get an even 70 degrees throughout the house.I cannot imagine that I am burning more than a 1/2 gal of oil to do this.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I think about a 6-8 degree drop off is about normal. Keeping the door open or being ready for the cool off when its closed is the key.

Personally, I love having the living room 68 overnight and 62 upstairs while we're all under blankets. I get up at 5am and it doesn't take to long to get the downstairs up to 72 and meanwhile the kids and wifey are still sleeping.

 

[Harvick29]

I have 2 sets of stair in my house leading to the top floor. The one set is in the room my stove is in. The set turns half way up. I set a fan on the steps blowing up where it turns. When your near the other set, you can feel the air hitting you in the face. My upstairs is probably 5 degrees cooler than the downstairs. Not much of a difference. I also closed off the extra bedroom in the house upstairs we use for storage. Box fans definetly work.

 

[trogers]

I have been using a Vornado fan. It does a terrible job. Today, I tried and old box fan and it made a big difference. I wish I knew why.

 

[drtnshtr]

Its all about volume. A small vornado will not cut it...I have an old Box fan the folks left in the basement of our house when we bought it..It is probably 25 yrs old or maybe older and isnt like these new little plastic box fans. This think blows some air

 

[evil]

You should get a bath exhaust fan with a three inch outlet. Get a good quality one with a really low sonnes rating of one or so you don't hear it. Couple this to 3 inch ductwork to grates in the bedrooms. If you could find one with a DC fan other than an AC fan it's even better, cheaper to run than Ac current. Locate the fan in the room where it is most likely to have the most hot air at the ceiling. Connect the wires and voila! put you shorts on. =)

 

[seige101]

I would look at the cost of running the box fans versus oil filled electric heaters, you may be better off with the heaters.

one of those oil filled heaters are about 1500 watts, a box fan is about 200 watts on high prolly 75 or so on low.

 

[donkarlos]

I likr the bathroom fn idea and had been thinking of something similar since some codes do not allow grates to be cut in floors - plus, who wants to ut holes in their floors ? also, an exhaust an allows for routing the ductwork around to a specific place you want.

 

[LJ4174]

I likr the bathroom fn idea and had been thinking of something similar since some codes do not allow grates to be cut in floors - plus, who wants to ut holes in their floors ? also, an exhaust an allows for routing the ductwork around to a specific place you want.

The only thing about bathroom fans, is they tend to be noisy...

I think this is what my 2 neighbors put in:

(broken link removed to http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId;=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100067594)

Ran if from an outlet, to a switch to the fan. They said it made a HUGE difference. The one guy put 2 fans in his room and 1 in his daughters... This is what I'm thinking of doing as well...

 

[donkarlos]

I think some have switches on them even. though I wonder if a dimmer would work.

 

[LJ4174]

I think some have switches on them even. though I wonder if a dimmer would work.

I'm not sure if the switch is on them directly, I know they aren't on the ones my neighbors installed. They went from the power souce to the fan, and put a switch in between, just a regular wall switch, I'm sure a dimmer would work... That's an idea... The other thing is and I'm not sure how'd you wire this, I would think the same way as a switch, but what about instead of a switch, you put a thermostate in, instead. That way the fan would only run when the temp drops below a certain temp...

 

[donkarlos]

that would be good. Im sure someone knows how. I don't !

 

[LJ4174]

Just posted this too... This is an option and something else I've heard of to circulate the air...

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/29397/

 

[Keys]

Follow this link (broken link removed to http://www.gascoals.net/Accessories/DoorwayFan/tabid/1187/Default.aspx)
These fans mount in the corner of a doorway and produce nice airflow from room to room. They come with a long cord to reach the nearest recepticle and, best of all, there cheap!