Moving the heat!

[Squiner]

Just finished my ductwork and blower to move the heat around my house.

Here is where the intake it. It's at the peak of my vaulted ceiling where my stove is. Ignore that hole next to the vent

Here is the insert

Here is a pic of the 200cfm whisper quiet blower and associated duct work.

I had to add a section of spiral duct in one of my rooms ceiling to get heat to the master bedroom. Still have to add a vent in that spiral duct to heat that room.

All together it cost about $400 parts and about two weekends of my labor. All I have left to do is a few finishing touches of spackle and paint and add some return vents in the bedroom doors. I may just leave the doors open this winter if I don't get around to it.

Anyone else try this? My house is a 1,500 s.f. ranch.

 

[cmonSTART]

I can't wait to hear how it works.

 

[Todd]

Hope it works out. I think I would of insulated the duct work, the warm air will cool pretty fast with a long duct run.

 

[Squiner]

Hope it works out. I think I would of insulated the duct work, the warm air will cool pretty fast with a long duct run.

I can go back and do that if need be. I was going to at first but the company that I bought everything from said I probably wouldn't need it since the air is moving pretty quick.

I'm actually running it now to cool the house down. I only have a window AC in my master bedroom. So it' sucking warm air from the ceiling in my living room and forcing the cool air from the bedroom to the living room. Its lowered the humidity in the living room 25% in the last two hours according to my little weather station.

 

[begreen]

Insulate the run. It will be worth it. You want to minimize the heat loss. No point in heating the crawlspaces and attic.

 

[Bigg_Redd]

Just finished my ductwork and blower to move the heat around my house.

Here is where the intake it. It's at the peak of my vaulted ceiling where my stove is. Ignore that hole next to the vent

Here is the insert

Here is a pic of the 200cfm whisper quiet blower and associated duct work.

I had to add a section of spiral duct in one of my rooms ceiling to get heat to the master bedroom. Still have to add a vent in that spiral duct to heat that room.

All together it cost about $400 parts and about two weekends of my labor. All I have left to do is a few finishing touches of spackle and paint and add some return vents in the bedroom doors. I may just leave the doors open this winter if I don't get around to it.

Anyone else try this? My house is a 1,500 s.f. ranch.

I wouldn't dream of going to all that trouble. I hope it works for you but my inner skeptic tells me it's probably a waste of time.

 

[Squiner]

Insulate the run. It will be worth it. You want to minimize the heat loss. No point in heating the crawlspaces and attic.

If I insulate I will rent an insulation blower and fill that space where I cannot reach easily, the rest i will wrap.

 

[Squiner]

I wouldn't dream of going to all that trouble. I hope it works for you but my inner skeptic tells me it's probably a waste of time.

I really don't see how this can't work. Like I said in an earlier post, I turned it on and all the air conditioned air from the back of the house rushed towards the low pressure of the living room. But if it doesn't, at leas I got a few more tools (tin snip set and a duct crimper).

 

[crazy_dan]

Are you using it as cold air return I.E. blowing at the stove?

 

[Squiner]

Here's my house layout. Cold air will return through the bedroom doors down the hallway back to the stove. The cold air will be heated and sucked in by at the intake at the top of ceiling.

Side View

Top View

 

[bbc557ci]

Squiner - I think that's an interesting idea.... don't listen to the nay-sayers as you REALLY don't know if something will or will not work, until you try it.

That said, the room where my stove is located also has a vaulted ceiling, and I was thinking of something similar last season (1st full burning season for me). It can be +75* in the lower part of the room, and 85ish in the upstairs bedrooms (open floor design here). My thought was to duct from the top of the room thru the wall studs, down to the basement with a fan in the duct, just to throw a little heat into the basement, and get rid of some moisture down there.

Rock on

 

[LLigetfa]

To me it looks like all that blue is where bodies occupy the space and so would feel the coolness. Rather than move the warm air through an attic or bulkhead, I move the cool air through my crawlspace. Cool air being more dense moves more efficiently.

 

[central_scrutinizer]

I'm no expert in thermodynamics, but it seems to me that the cool air would be no cooler than the rest of the air in the room when you start heating, and would only steadily increase in temperature as the stove burns. I guess what I'm trying to say is that since it is a closed system (within the dwelling), the coldest the "blue" air would ever be is the starting temperature and it would steadily warm up. It wouldn't be any colder than it would be without the fan and would take much longer to heat up without the fan. Without the convection aid, the air would stay really "blue" all the time until the hot air stacked down to the floor level, if it ever did.

I think his setup can do nothing but help. Kudos on the paint shop drawings. Just whipped that right up, did you? You gonna frame a bulkhead around the spiral duct in the bedroom?

 

[Squiner]

I'm no expert in thermodynamics, but it seems to me that the cool air would be no cooler than the rest of the air in the room when you start heating, and would only steadily increase in temperature as the stove burns. I guess what I'm trying to say is that since it is a closed system (within the dwelling), the coldest the "blue" air would ever be is the starting temperature and it would steadily warm up. It wouldn't be any colder than it would be without the fan and would take much longer to heat up without the fan. Without the convection aid, the air would stay really "blue" all the time until the hot air stacked down to the floor level, if it ever did.

I think his setup can do nothing but help. Kudos on the paint shop drawings. Just whipped that right up, did you? You gonna frame a bulkhead around the spiral duct in the bedroom?

I think your exactly right.

The blue is merely a depiction of the relative temperature in the room.

Thanks for the paint kudos, just wanted to provide it so everyone can understand better.

I'm going to leave the duct exposed. Maybe not everyone's style but I like it.

 

[Squiner]

Squiner - I think that's an interesting idea.... don't listen to the nay-sayers as you REALLY don't know if something will or will not work, until you try it.

That said, the room where my stove is located also has a vaulted ceiling, and I was thinking of something similar last season (1st full burning season for me). It can be +75* in the lower part of the room, and 85ish in the upstairs bedrooms (open floor design here). My thought was to duct from the top of the room thru the wall studs, down to the basement with a fan in the duct, just to throw a little heat into the basement, and get rid of some moisture down there.

Rock on

Thanks bbc.

I'll be able to do some test when winter rolls around. I can turn the blower off and see how warm the back rooms get. I will try with fans in the hallway like most people recommend. Put some Myths to the test!

 

[Squiner]

To me it looks like all that blue is where bodies occupy the space and so would feel the coolness. Rather than move the warm air through an attic or bulkhead, I move the cool air through my crawlspace. Cool air being more dense moves more efficiently.

That's true, it would be more efficient to move cool air. Unfortunately I'm on a slab so I really didn't have a choice.

 

[central_scrutinizer]

i'd try reversing the blower so it blows at the stove area, 4fun & science

Again, no expert here, but I would think that your suggestion would be less efficient at heating the rooms because it would be constantly sucking air from high in the rooms, which is where most of the warm air would tend to stay anyway. At least with blowing the warm air into the rooms you are forcing it down to the living area. Sure, the air would eventually even out to the same temperature, but with blowing the air into the back rooms instead of drawing from the rooms, I think you would feel the warmth quicker.

 

[jdinspector]

In the photo, is that an orange extension cord running through a wall? Or perhaps some orange NM (romex) cable?

 

[Squiner]

In the photo, is that an orange extension cord running through a wall? Or perhaps some orange NM (romex) cable?

That's Romex. Although, the previous owners of this house did some very poor wiring which I'm slowly removing as I remodel the house. Some switches broke the neutral where as it should be the hot. Above the kitchen drop ceiling, there were connection outside of wiring boxes dangling in a 10' span. In the screened in porch there are indoor extension cords wired in permanently. That's what I have seen in the last 7 months since I bought the house. I did get lucky in that all of my receptacles are grounded. All I have to do is switch out the two pronged outlets and upgrade to three prong.

 

[Ratman]

I agree with the man from Maine with the alcoholic dog...

Blowing the colder air into the room (induction) where the stove is will assist in the convection circulation process as will blowing the hot air out.

One fan set at a high point in the roon will push the hot air out and as it cools, since cold air is more dense, it will fall, and a fan set lower could pull that cooler air back into the stove room.
As the house warms this convection circulation will slow a bit.

If you don't do this you will de-pressurise the room and the stove will first try to pull outside air in through leaks or perform poorly if it can't.

 

[Dune]

Afraid I have to agree with Pook and Ratman here. It will certainly be interesting to see how well it works as installed, but I wouldn't hesitate to reverse the flow someday. I considered a similar system for my 70' long cape-ranch but ending up going with hot water since it was plumbed already.

 

[Squiner]

Just wanted to give an update on how it's working so far.

It moves the heat quite well, the back three bedrooms of the house gets to be about 7-10 degrees cooler than the front where the stove is. Much better than when I have the blower off. Mind you the room with the stove is around 77 degrees.

I had the blower on a switch and it would run all night even though the stove had cooled down to where I didnt need it on. So I bought an attic thermostat and wired it in. I have the thermostat at the ceiling in the room with the stove. When the ceiling temp reaches around 85 degrees, the blower kicks on and stays on until the ceiling temp lowers 7 degrees or so.

 

[tclapes1]

and , it was supossed that getting air from stove room, can be dangerous to reverse the draft of the stove towards inside the house, wasnt it?

 

[PunKid8888]

I am interested in seeing how it works. I have been thinking of doing a passive system to get heat into the bed rooms. my stove is centrally located so the distance to the bed rooms is far less.

I am also interested in the draft issue. but it might be as simple as installing a switch for the fan near the stove so that when you need to reload you can shut the fan off.

 

[btuser]

I too was planning something like this, but I was planning on pushing cold air from the bedrooms into the stove room, therefore pulling the warm air up and into the bedrooms, and across several smoke detectors along the way. I've got a relay wired to my stove blower now to cut out on alarm through my burg panel. I try to talk people out of cutting holes in their floors to get the air moving around.