Newbie question

[photoghog]

I know this has been covered before so I apologize in advance. I did search the threads but didn't find anything that answered my question. Just got my fireplace put in (Kozy Heat z42) and I am trying to move warm air from my living room (has 13' ceilings if that matters) to my bedroom (280 sq ft) which is approximately 15' away from the edge of the living room in a single level home. A couple of questions:
- should I use a duct booster fan to accomplish this?
- How would I size the fan appropriately?
- Is there a way to tie a thermostat in our bedroom to the fan so that it only comes on when needed?

Thanks in advance. Really excited to be burning wood again

 

[gthomas785]

Hi! It's hard to make specific recommendations without knowing more about the layout of your house, but in general the most effective way is to move "cold" air from the space you're trying to heat, toward the fire. Then the warm air will naturally displace the cold air that was removed. Trying to move the warm air directly usually gives underwhelming results.

Maybe just putting a fan in the bedroom doorway at floor level blowing out into the hallway in the direction of the fireplace would help.

If you're interested in a more involved project, and again depending on the layout of the house, you could install ductwork with an inline blower to take air from the floor of your bedroom and dump it into the fireplace room. In general, you don't need too much flow for it to be effective, but if the duct leaves the heated space (e.g. run through a basement) then you need to insulate the heck out of it or you will lose more heat than you're moving.

As far as a thermostat, I would suggest putting the fan on a "cooling" thermostat in the room where the fireplace is, and set it to come on whenever that room gets warm, say over 70-75F or so. That way the fan will run whenever the fire is heating the space and you can control the temperature by adjusting the fire.

 

[photoghog]

Hi! It's hard to make specific recommendations without knowing more about the layout of your house, but in general the most effective way is to move "cold" air from the space you're trying to heat, toward the fire. Then the warm air will naturally displace the cold air that was removed. Trying to move the warm air directly usually gives underwhelming results.

Maybe just putting a fan in the bedroom doorway at floor level blowing out into the hallway in the direction of the fireplace would help.

If you're interested in a more involved project, and again depending on the layout of the house, you could install ductwork with an inline blower to take air from the floor of your bedroom and dump it into the fireplace room. In general, you don't need too much flow for it to be effective, but if the duct leaves the heated space (e.g. run through a basement) then you need to insulate the heck out of it or you will lose more heat than you're moving.

As far as a thermostat, I would suggest putting the fan on a "cooling" thermostat in the room where the fireplace is, and set it to come on whenever that room gets warm, say over 70-75F or so. That way the fan will run whenever the fire is heating the space and you can control the temperature by adjusting the fire.

Thank you for the reply. Here are some photos of the layout. Living room is a long room with 13' ceilings. The picture is how the living room opens to the dining room. Behind that red table is the master bedroom, which is the room to be heated. It is a single story, ranch style home. My thought was to run ducting from the ceiling of the living room to the ceiling of the master with thermostatically controlled inline fan. Based on what you are saying this might not work well?

 

[kennyp2339]

@photoghog that might work, but even an insulated ducted run like that will make the bedroom feel drafty as 100deg air flows out, I while back there was a member that did your idea but in reverse, he made a return in his ceiling with a duct fan boosting the air back to the stove room, as another member stated, cold air leaves and is replaced with warm air.
I installed a duct fan into a floor grate setup this winter, I will say that it worked for my setup, but even a quiet fan is noticeable at night when the rest of the house is quiet. I used a 6" 160cfm fan that was fairly cheap at homedepot.

 

[gthomas785]

Thank you for the reply. Here are some photos of the layout. Living room is a long room with 13' ceilings. The picture is how the living room opens to the dining room. Behind that red table is the master bedroom, which is the room to be heated. It is a single story, ranch style home. My thought was to run ducting from the ceiling of the living room to the ceiling of the master with thermostatically controlled inline fan. Based on what you are saying this might not work well?

It would probably help a little but not the way you expect. Whatever the temperature is in the living room, that's the warmest air that would ever be blowing out of the vent in the bedroom. 80-90 degree air doesn't feel that great blowing around it's not like a warm air furnace that can blow 140+ degrees. As @kennyp2339 said it will feel drafty.

 

[begreen]

Maybe just putting a fan in the bedroom doorway at floor level blowing out into the hallway in the direction of the fireplace would help.

That's where I would start. If it proves effective one could make this more permanent with a ducted blower system on a thermostat. I've described this multiple times in threads on "Moving the heat". Choosing a quiet blower will help if noise is a concern.

Kenny, what blower did you use?