Reasonable distance to move heat

[kyguylal]

Hi everyone. I am in a tri level house. Each floor is 800 SF. The stove is in the middle level which has 16' ceilings.

The stove is located approximately 18' from the bedrooms and in direct sight of the half stair case up.

I'm having an issue moving heat up the half flight to the bedrooms. Currently, I'm cranking the heat out and have the stove floor at 86 degrees. The bedrooms are at 58 degrees. I feel like this is a pretty drastic difference when the bedrooms are only 18' away from the stove and up a half flight.

The windows and walls are pretty well insulated up there too. I've tried all different fan combinations of blowing the cold air towards the hot air without luck.

I really can't stand to try to make it hotter in here on the middle floor.

Any ideas or am I asking too much of the stove?

 

[begreen]

I suspect that most of the hot air might be pocketed at the peak of the 16 ft ceiling. Are there ceiling fans running in the stove room?

 

[kyguylal]

Thank you. We have one on the opposite side of the floor (completely open floor). I'll try running that and I'll see how it goes.

I just checked with the IR thermometer and you're right, there's a lot of heat up there.

Anyone tried one of the blue box heat sticks by the way?

HEATSTICK

heatstick.com

 

[begreen]

Running the ceiling fan should make a difference. Try it for a day in each direction (blowing down or up) on low speed and see if that helps move the heat stratifying near at the ceiling peak.

 

[weatherguy]

Thank you. We have one on the opposite side of the floor (completely open floor). I'll try running that and I'll see how it goes.

I just checked with the IR thermometer and you're right, there's a lot of heat up there.

Anyone tried one of the blue box heat sticks by the way?

HEATSTICK

heatstick.com

That device looks interesting, I'd like to hear from anyone that's used one. Let us know if you try it.

 

[EbS-P]

you need to get the cold air out of the bedrooms. Fan on the floor pointed to the stairs is worth a try.

Heat stick appears gimmicky to me. How much heat can you buy for 80$ using your existing methods?

evan

 

[Northern NH Mike]

you need to get the cold air out of the bedrooms. Fan on the floor pointed to the stairs is worth a try.

Works like a charm for me!

 

[Woody Stover]

I've tried all different fan combinations of blowing the cold air towards the hot air without luck.

you need to get the cold air out of the bedrooms. Fan on the floor pointed to the stairs is worth a try.

kyguy, what kind of fans do you have, and can you describe what setups you've tried with them?
EbS-P...right, you need to move cold air out of the bedrooms, and warmer air will flow in through the tops of the doorways.
Try a small 8" fan that pivots, at the top of the stairs pointing down, to move cool, dense air down just above the stairs. Run it on low so that you don't perturb the natural convection loop that is already happening..you just want to boost that. Try it with and without ceiling fans, which may disrupt the stratification of air which feeds the natural convection loop. With that high ceiling though, you'll just have to experiment. You can tape tissue strips in the tops of doorways to help you see what is working when you try different things..
It can be tough if the bedrooms are in corners and have two outside walls..lots of heat loss there.

 

[kyguylal]

Thank you. I have a small 6" fan on low in the doorway, facing down the hall, towards the stove. Another issue is that the master bedroom is 24x15 and has two exterior walls.

I am currently trying with the fan further into the bedroom, facing the doorway.

Its definitely not a lack of heat, even with the tall ceilings, a 14' tall by 12' long window, I can easily get the stove floor into the 80s if I feel the need.

Going to check the temperatures tonight and tomorrow with the various set ups.

 

[sweedish]

Usually the temp difference between the downstairs room where the insert is and the bedroom upstairs on the other side of the house is 4 degrees cooler. I have 3 fans moving air, 1 moves cool air from bedroom hallway towards stairs, the other 2 move cold air from downstairs toward the stove

 

[Jackfre]

There are a number of things you can look at. Air is a fluid and wants to move. Think of the straw in a glass of water. Put your finger on the end of the straw and you can lift the water out of the glass. Remove your finger and the water flows freely. Hot air rises, cold falls. You need to create a path for the flow of the air. Try cutting some grilles from the outside walls of the 3rd floor room through to the second. If the bedroom doors are typically closed, short cut the doors. This creates a path for the air to circulate, and it will. Should this not suit you try a Tjernlund Aireshare. I have used thousands of the wall to wall and through the floor units with excellent results.

 

[Woody Stover]

Hot air rises, cold falls.

Right, this is the basis of the natural convection loop; The heavier cool air sinks to the floor and spreads out. Cool air falls off the walls in the bedroom and flows out the door into the hallway, eventually falling down the stairs to the stove room, and is replaced by warmer air coming in through the top of the doorway. The vaulted ceiling in the stove room collects warm air, but it eventually warms the air down to the top of the staircase, and it can flow upstairs along the ceiling. The fan at the top of the stairs, on low, will help heat all of the upstairs. Blowing cool air out the bedroom door, as the OP is trying, will strengthen the loop in the bedroom.

Try cutting some grilles from the outside walls of the 3rd floor room through to the second.

In a tri-level, the 3rd floor bedrooms are normally above the first floor, not the stove room in this case.
I keep the doors to the bedroom almost closed, concentrating heat in the main room. In a cold snap, the bedroom might be in the low 60s. We have a few fleece blankets and a down comforter on the bed. I don't want to get out of bed but I can usually get my clothes on before hypothermia sets in.

 

[Simonkenton]

It is surprising how hard it is to move heat up a stairwell. I have a two story house and I had a wood stove downstairs. I built the house, and while building, I was concerned that the upstairs room would be too warm.
In fact, I almost put a layer of insulation on the floor of the second story, under the finished floor.

Now I am glad I didn't because not that much heat went up that stairwell and it was too chilly in the upstairs bedroom, not too warm.

So I cut a vent in the ceiling. I cut a hole 6 x 15 and installed one of those brass floor grates. And that made no difference at all, much to my surprise. Obviously, I could have moved that air upstairs with a big enough grate but it would have had to be 2 feet by 2 feet or something.
I gave up on the project and I put an electric plug-in heater in that upstairs bedroom.

Good luck with your project, I don't know what to tell you.

 

[barnaclebob]

Have you tried putting a small fan on the floor in the bedroom doorway to blow the cold air out?

 

[begreen]

t is surprising how hard it is to move heat up a stairwell. I have a two story house and I had a wood stove downstairs. I built the house, and while building, I was concerned that the upstairs room would be too warm.

I had the opposite experience, but we have a large open stairwell. At first, heat went upstairs too easily because the ceiling is flat and all one level from the livingroom. I added a false transom to slow it down a bit. That has worked out well.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I had the same experience as @begreen in our current home. The heat flows up the stairwell, but it pockets in the ceiling there before it makes it through the doorways because there’s a good deal of cubic footage in the stairwell.

We plan to build a false transom as well. Currently we have only thick kraft paper tacked and taped in place because we wanted to examine the effects of the change year round to determine if we wanted to construct something permanent. There are some advantages in the summer to letting the heat escape our kitchen into the stairwell. In the winter there’s not really any help for us. It just makes the downstairs heat run more.

@kyguylal, Have you examined those back bedrooms thoroughly for cold air infiltration? That temperature difference is really more than we experienced in our back bedrooms heating our raised ranch in Virginia from the basement with an insert, and the stove did not have a line of sight to them, but they were smaller.

Using tissues in doorways to watch airflow as mentioned above is helpful. I spent time with an IR gun figuring out where our heat got stalled. One mental picture that helped me was imagining my home upside down as a bathtub. The heat is like water flowing from the tap, and it gets caught in high-ceilinged areas and has to fill them completely before it “overflows” under transoms and the like.

Have you ever opened a window right next to the stove to see if bringing make-up air from close by makes a difference?

 

[begreen]

We plan to build a false transom as well. Currently we have only thick kraft paper tacked and taped in place because we wanted to examine the effects of the change year round to determine if we wanted to construct something permanent. There are some advantages in the summer to letting the heat escape our kitchen into the stairwell. In the winter there’s not really any help for us. It just makes the downstairs heat run more.

That's what I did too. I taped up a sheet of 18" plastic in the area that now has the transom in order to test the effectiveness of blocking warm air there. After a month of running that way in all sorts of weather, it was apparent to me that the change was worth it.

 

[Woody Stover]

I had the opposite experience, but we have a large open stairwell. At first, heat went upstairs too easily because the ceiling is flat and all one level from the livingroom. I added a false transom to slow it down a bit

In the house my folks built when I was a teen, two people would have to work a bit to get past each other on the stairs..not all that wide. '60s vintage house.

We plan to build a false transom as well. Currently we have only thick kraft paper tacked and taped in place because we wanted to examine the effects of the change year round to determine if we wanted to construct something permanent. There are some advantages in the summer to letting the heat escape our kitchen into the stairwell. In the winter there’s not really any help for us. It just makes the downstairs heat run more.

Hmmm, I wonder if you could come up with something removable, depending on the season?

@kyguylal, Have you examined those back bedrooms thoroughly for cold air infiltration? ....Using tissues in doorways to watch airflow as mentioned above is helpful. I spent time with an IR gun figuring out where our heat got stalled....The heat is like water flowing from the tap, and it gets caught in high-ceilinged areas and has to fill them completely before it “overflows” under transoms and the like.

I used the IR thermometer aslo, at my MIL's house with the Buck 91, and found I had a couple of different problems. First was no wall insulation in the 1907 clapboard siding house, later covered with aluminum.
Second, the stove room was a solarium with glass on three walls..cheesy aluminum storms over the original wood casement windows. And then there was a row of transom windows above all the windows...single-pane glass! Serious heat loss, and I put up a bunch of window shrink wrap. At least the stove room had a lower ceiling and two doorways, and heat "overflowed" out of the solarium pretty well. You couldn't turn on the ceiling fan in that 12x20 room, or you would fry sitting in the chairs. I found it was better to let the heat off the mighty Buck rise above seating level and let convection work its magic.
Third, stove room was at one end of the house and bedrooms were at the other, with a living room/dining room/kitchen between the two ends. With 9.5' ceilings, heat stalled in the living room and I considered putting some large decorative vents in the large transoms. I never got up the nerve to run that idea by her and she used a couple small electric heaters in the bedroom and kitchen to help out.
The IR gun is also useful for checking for air leaks around windows, electrical outlets, etc. Attic access sealing is another thing to check, but the IR gun can't see that..warm air is flowing out.

 

[kyguylal]

Thank you all for your help. I'm going to spend the night running around with the IR gun to check out the latest fan orientation. I'll report back