Question on distributing heat throughout the house. Please help

[Jersey_Marine]

I live in a custom bi-level house with my stove being in the second lowest level. I say “custom” because the house is 4 levels. The lowest level is only where my cigar lounge/bar is and the stove is located on the next level up (Only 3 steps above). The stove is located on the level coming straight in from the garage (Den) and then there is a flight of steps that goes up to the living room. From that level it goes up about 5 more steps to the kitchen/dining room and the bedrooms are located down the hall on that level. My question is what is the best way to get the heat from where the stove is up to the kitchen/bedroom level? I have a fan in front of the stove blowing the heat up the steps to the living room area but I want to get the heat to the kitchen area. Is it beneficial too crack a window on the highest level to draw the air up? Or would it just send useless cold air into the house? Any advice is appreciated

 

[kennyp2339]

Take that fan up to the kitchen area and point it at the steps blowing the cool air towards the stairs. The cold denser air will want to go down and the warmer less dense will fill that space.

 

[Jersey_Marine]

Take that fan up to the kitchen area and point it at the steps blowing the cool air towards the stairs. The cold denser air will want to go down and the warmer less dense will fill that space.

Wow. Really? I would think that would have prevented the warm air from coming up

 

[mol1jb]

Kenny is right. Cold air is much easier to move than warm air. And when you move the cold air to the stove room the warm air will replace it. Angle the fan parallel to the steps and it should work good. Just remember that stoves are space heaters and getting the upper level warmer from that far away will always be a challenge.

 

[kennyp2339]

Wow. Really? I would think that would have prevented the warm air from coming up

lol Jarheads think that way, take my advice I'm a smarter Coastie

 

[Jersey_Marine]

lol Jarheads think that way, take my advice I'm a smarter Coastie

Lol. Thanks brother. Im going to try it today

 

[kennyp2339]

I do the same thing but rather than using a fan I bought one of those tall Holmes air purifier, its moves a good deal of air and has a great filter.. its the tall standing one and takes the air from the front and blows it out the back, so you move colder air towards the stove and the bonus is that it gets cleaned by the filter removing any dust and stuff.

 

[cjgoode]

Do you have a central air system? You can get a thermostat to run only the fan on a schedule to re distribute the air in the house and even it out.

 

[rawlins02]

Kenny is right. Cold air is much easier to move than warm air. And when you move the cold air to the stove room the warm air will replace it. Angle the fan parallel to the steps and it should work good. Just remember that stoves are space heaters and getting the upper level warmer from that far away will always be a challenge.

Very true. Forcing cold air into the stove room will force warm air out. This photo below shows what I do. I have a box fan on the floor in an adjacent room that blows cool air into (blue arrow) the stove room. Air rises near the stove (yellow arrows) and flows out both doorways (red arrows). I've used a smoldering stick to see how warm air clearly exits the room above (around 4-8') the cold air coming in (floor to 3').

 

[Sawset]

rawlins02 is on the right track. Get an incense stick or similar and follow the smoke trails. Get a feel for where and how fast the air is moving. On cold days here I can track cold air going from end rooms down stairs and along hallways to the stove - 60fpm, warm air going out to along the ceilings the same. If the path is at restricted at all, a fan on the floor helps in moving the cold air along to the stove. Each room is stratified on it's own - warm ceiling, cold floor - no matter what level it's on.