Return air from upstairs to stove room

[Sain6815]

hey all,

I've been reading up on this so correct me if I'm wrong. I'll be using my wood stove in the basement as a major heat source this winter. Planning on leaving basement door open to allow heat to rise up stairwell.

I have an area in our dining room upstairs that's colder than the rest of the house. I've heard it's better to move cold air to stove area. So my thought it to add a return vent with an inline duct blower that will suck cold air off the floor in the dining room and vent the cold air into the room in basement with the stove. Then, the warm air coming up the stair well will replace it.

Am I crazy or is this a good idea?

 

[georgepds]

Vents between floors may have an issue with fire safety..not sure..but you might want to check with the building inspector

I think the rough idea is it forms a channel for fire

 

[begreen]

Your idea might work. Is the stove location close to the stairwell or quite a distance apart? If the stove is close to the stairwell then the vent will need to be large enough and preferably on an outside wall. There probably is no need for a duct or fan if the basement is an open area. Natural convection will circulate the air with the right setup.

george is right about safety concerns. The vent should have a fusible-link damper installed for fire safety.

 

[Squirrely]

hey all,

I've been reading up on this so correct me if I'm wrong. I'll be using my wood stove in the basement as a major heat source this winter. Planning on leaving basement door open to allow heat to rise up stairwell.

I have an area in our dining room upstairs that's colder than the rest of the house. I've heard it's better to move cold air to stove area. So my thought it to add a return vent with an inline duct blower that will suck cold air off the floor in the dining room and vent the cold air into the room in basement with the stove. Then, the warm air coming up the stair well will replace it.

Am I crazy or is this a good idea?

You're not crazy.

We employ a similar idea. With a whole-house 21 foot open ceiling, hot air rises off the stove and flue...



...where a small fan up near the highest point returns the hot air back down inside the wall...



...to blow onto the stove from behind to circulate heat around the lower floor.



The fan has a convenient infinite speed control in the wall. This simple setup works great.

Greg

 

[yooper08]

It could work or at least improve it, the general concept of moving cold air is right on. One thing I'd keep in mind is that the majority of the cold air will go along the path of least resistance. Think of a bucket of water with a large hole and small hole on the bottom - the same will happen with air.

If there's a pretty good path from the dining room to the stairs or room that is pretty warm, maybe first try a small floor fan pointed in that direction before going through the floor?

 

[Woodsplitter67]

The idea of moving the air around with duct booster fans is a great one. We did this last year. Works wonderful, we dont need to run ours all the time only when it gets cold. Like night time temps in the teens. I have mine set up like this. I have one going into the master bath which is one of the farthest rooms and also my kids 2 bedrooms, which is on the opposite side. I did a post on this, i put an air probe in the vent and showed how warm the air was coming out. It was pretty easy to do with just flex pipe. Really made a difference..

 

[Rickb]

I did that. Matter of fact it works so well I leave it running all year long to maintain even temps on both floors. I cut a hole in the floor and added a hvac register that uses a duct fan to suck air from my main floor down to the basement and that really helps keep the stove room in the basement from getting to hot and helps displace the warm air up the stairs. I use this: http://www.homedepot.com/p/VENTS-225-CFM-Power-6-in-Mixed-Flow-In-Line-Duct-Fan-TT-150/204629634

Works great!

 

[Squirrely]

The idea of moving the air around with duct booster fans is a great one. We did this last year. Works wonderful, we dont need to run ours all the time only when it gets cold. Like night time temps in the teens. I have mine set up like this. I have one going into the master bath which is one of the farthest rooms and also my kids 2 bedrooms, which is on the opposite side. I did a post on this, i put an air probe in the vent and showed how warm the air was coming out. It was pretty easy to do with just flex pipe. Really made a difference..

I also took temp readings with an IR thermometer. With the stove operating, the temp at the fan is 85 degrees and the air coming out of the duct opening is 83 degrees.

Greg

 

[aaronk25]

I used the stairway as a cold air return then blocked the returns down stairs at floor level and added a return downstairs but at the ceiling level.

The purpose is to create a low pressure/vacuum in the basement which forces colder heavy denser air down the staircase acting as a cold air return to the stove. Sure sucking the hot air high off the ceiling by the stove in the basement works ok but the real key is getting cold air back down to the stove.

I installed a wifi thermostat and turn off the constant run fan about 2 min before reload to insure we don't suck smoke out during reloads. This is a 1900sq ft total house and the blaze king princess in the basement with this set up and constant run furnace fan at 630cfm keeps the house upstairs far rooms at 70 down to 5f.


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