Please help! Poor air circulation.

[Ace4059]

Sorry guys, this is going to be a long one.
I’ve read several threads about this and the common answer is to move the cold air. I’ve tried a few different ways without success.

So my stove makes the kitchen and dining room, living area 90+ degrees and the bedrooms are in the 60’s.

Here’s a layout of the house and I’ll explain the problem below.

The air movement through the house sucks and I have limited options. The house has a basement and all the HVAC is in the basement. All duct work is ran through the slab and is in ground.

Basement ceiling is 2" steel plate with I beam supports with 36" concrete poured on top. So no way to modify vents, ductwork, or add anything.

No return air ducts in the house. Air just flows down open stairwell down into the basement where it's pushed out from the floor vents. Air travels from back bedrooms down hallway straight down basement stairwell and what I feel like doesn't really circulate with the rest of the house. The living room kitchen are too hot and the bedrooms are cold. I run the main Central HVAC fan (fan only, no heat) on constant on, to try to help circulate the air and filter it. All ceiling fans are on and reversed.

The add-on room does not have any vents, or return air but remains comfortable due to the large open wall design. Main issue is the bedrooms.


What I would like to do is circulate air in front of the stove back into the bedrooms to help evenly heat the house. I see this is frowned upon because the heat isn’t retained in the ductwork. I even read that ducts too close to the stove can cause draft issues.

The house used to have a fireplace and it looks like someone had vents off of the fireplace and ran metal ducting back to the bedrooms with overhead vents. Pics #2 is where I think the old chimney came up in the middle, and then the two ducks came up on each side of the chimney blowing hot air back in the bedrooms with pic #3

Pic #3

The stove I installed, is fairly close to the original fireplace that was removed.


Through my hours of research in forums other people have asked this question about moving hot air through ductwork. Everyone suggest to move cold air because it's denser, and the heat will fill the cold air voids but I do not see an option for me to move cold air since the only option (that I see) for me is to use the overhead vents. I feel like if I ran the air backwards, it would be taking hot air out of the bedroom since the vents are overhead and it would be putting more hot air into the living room/kitchen area, and then the air would be fighting the HVAC fan trying to push the air back down the hallway as the central hvac is pulling air down the hall.

Will it be effective for me to run a return in the ceiling in front of the stove and use new insulated flex ducts with an in line duct blower and run it to the cut out overhead vents in the bedrooms? Will the air coming out of the vents 45 foot still be warm? Will this help with the circulation throughout the house?

Do I have any other options that I’m missing?

I've tried placing six box fans around the house to help circulate the cold air on the floor, but it still does not help heat the back bedrooms. This would make sense because hot air is not going to travel down the stairwell into the basement to be circulated by the central heat and air back into the bedrooms.


Sorry for the long winded post, but any advice would be appreciated

 

[EbS-P]

I have a similar layout. Open staircase down against the Bedroom. Here is what has helped. You need to set up a convective loop. That means not stirring up the air but gently guiding it.

I have a ceiling fan I run blowing up on low all the time that has line of sight to the bedroom hallways. (We removed the door header so it’s a flat ceiling all the way from fan to back bedroom doors. Then I place a desk fan on low on the floor at the end of the hallway blowing towards your stairs. Doors are always kept open. Even without the desk fan I can feel a cold draft from the hallway to the stove.

It’s not a great layout but I can keep the temp differential to about 10-13 degrees when it’s pretty cold. It’s about 6-8 degrees right now.

 

[Ace4059]

I should have added to the drawing that the doorway to the stairs is right off the hall.

The staircase has a wall on three sides and is open on the hallway side for the air to move down the stairs. Furthermore the stair case wall block the path to the hallway.

Yes there is a header above the opening that runs down the hallway.

I’ve tried running a fan down the hallway in both directions. Neither way seemed to help.

I feel the air in the house has two different circulation paths. One is the bedroom path. The cold air circulates from the bedrooms down the hallway straight down the stairwell to the basement and is blows back through the floors into the bedrooms for it to all happen again.

The next air movement pattern is just a circle around and around the stairwell of hot air. The hot air moves from the kitchen to living room and goes around the stairwell walls.

The added on room has no vents and no return. There is no air circulation in that room and I can feel the difference in temperature.

 

[30WCF]

Try a tower fan out of each room blowing into the hall, a box fan a foot off the back wall of the hall blowing down the hall and a two of your box fans kicking at 45s into the kitchen and living room. Tyr this at different speeds.

Cold air into the hall from each room.
Cold air from the hall into the kitchen and living room.
Warm air has to replace it.

 

[Ace4059]

I tried pushing the cold air out of each room and one fan blowing it down the hallway. It only raised the temperature 3 degrees in the bedrooms. It was still hot in the living room and kitchen/dining area.

 

[Samcanadian]

I tried pushing the cold air out of each room and one fan blowing it down the hallway. It only raised the temperature 3 degrees in the bedrooms. It was still hot in the living room and kitchen/dining area.

Sounded like it did SOMETHING. I'm curious about your results tbh. I have a somewhat similar situation although not quite as bad as yours.

 

[Ace4059]

I tried it with the HVAC fan running only, hvac fan with additional box fans/tower fans and ceiling fans on, only ceiling fans, and ceiling fans with the box fans/tower fans.

Not much of a difference with all those combos. Maybe one degree warmer without the HVAC fan.

I still think I need to install a return air above the stove and have it blow into the bedrooms.
Any suggestions on this?

 

[30WCF]

My house is small, but two tower fans blowing from the master bedroom down the hall into the stove room moves plenty of warm air back along the ceiling. One is at the front of the hall and one is at the back of the hall.

If the stove is putting out heat, there is a small difference in room temps. You can stand in the hall and feel a warm breeze on your face.

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[begreen]

I still think I need to install a return air above the stove and have it blow into the bedrooms.
Any suggestions on this?

Mechanical code requires the return to be at least 10 ft away from the stove. However, the opposite is possible and more effective. It's easier to move more dense cold air then lighter warm air.

A fan can pull cold air from the bedrooms via a well insulated duct system and blow it into the stove room. This will cause warmer air from the stove room to replace the colder bedroom air. Is there a basement where the duct can be routed? The bedrooms can be Y'ed into an 8" trunk duct that has an inline blower.

 

[30WCF]

Mechanical code requires the return to be at least 10 ft away from the stove. However, the opposite is possible and more effective. It's easier to move more dense cold air then lighter warm air.

A fan can pull cold air from the bedrooms via a well insulated duct system and blow it into the stove room. This will cause warmer air from the stove room to replace the colder bedroom air. Is there a basement where the duct can be routed? The bedrooms can be Y'ed into an 8" trunk duct that has an inline blower.

I’ve thought about ducting the cold air into the stove room myself. Just hate to cut two holes in hardwood floors.