After weeks of reading posts and gathering great info I figured maybe someone whould get some use out of this info. I have a Dutchwest extra large stove in my living room. my house is about 1800 sf and the living room is on the oposite end of the house from the bedrooms. I tried placing fans in different areas to get the heat to the back. one day last summer while replacing the thermostat for my central air/ forced air furnace I realized I could utilize the old one to temperature control the fan only. The way most thermostats are hooked up you can have the fan on or auto which kicks it on with the ac or burners in the furnace. After hooking the thermostat up with the common wire to the common terminal and the fan control wire on to the heat terminal . I flipped it on and it worked. Now i have two thermostats. one controls the furnace and ac and the other kicks the fan on at any set temp and draws the heat out of the living room (cold air return above stove) and circulates it throughout the house. Now my living room no longer stays too hot and the bedrooms stay nice and cozy all thermostaticly controlled, no fans to plug in and leave on and no turning on and off the fan of the furnace mannually. hope this gives someone some help/ideas I should note that most newer furnaces are wired low voltage on the thermostat wiring however if you not sure what wire controls what you need to find out because you could still cause damage to the controls in the furnace if you get the wrong wires put together.
spread the heat in the house
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AK, glad you have things working to your satisfaction....
BUT, I have to add a caveat here. There are certain rules (both of thumb and of common sense, and also some codes) which state that having a cold air return near a stove is not always a good idea! The reasons is that it can cause a negative pressure in that room - in the vicinity of the stove, and actually suck smoke right out of the appliance! I saw this happen myself years ago in one of our customers homes. They had a coal stove, and the return vent nearby was very black, as well as some of the rest of the house - return was sucking air and coal soot from the stove room and then distributing it all over the house!
Please see this QA:
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/QA_Templates/info/1999/
and:
2.3. Return-air inlets shall not be located
within 10 feet (3048 mm) of any appliance
firebox or draft hood in the same
room or space.
3. Rooms or spaces containing solid-fuel burning
appliances, provided that return-air inlets are
located not less than 10 feet (3048 mm) from
the firebox of such appliances.
Again, from afar I cannot judge your exact situation - just inserting this here to make certain others are informed of the possible issues with cold air returns.
BUT, I have to add a caveat here. There are certain rules (both of thumb and of common sense, and also some codes) which state that having a cold air return near a stove is not always a good idea! The reasons is that it can cause a negative pressure in that room - in the vicinity of the stove, and actually suck smoke right out of the appliance! I saw this happen myself years ago in one of our customers homes. They had a coal stove, and the return vent nearby was very black, as well as some of the rest of the house - return was sucking air and coal soot from the stove room and then distributing it all over the house!
Please see this QA:
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/QA_Templates/info/1999/
and:
2.3. Return-air inlets shall not be located
within 10 feet (3048 mm) of any appliance
firebox or draft hood in the same
room or space.
3. Rooms or spaces containing solid-fuel burning
appliances, provided that return-air inlets are
located not less than 10 feet (3048 mm) from
the firebox of such appliances.
Again, from afar I cannot judge your exact situation - just inserting this here to make certain others are informed of the possible issues with cold air returns.
I guess I should clarify. In relationship to the size of this room it is above the stove. Closer than ten feet? I won't say for sure without the tape on it but i would gues no. As for negetive pressure in the room I have never had a problem. however that is a very valid point. Maybe my house has a more open layout than most allowing for good circulation therefor preventing any negative pressure situations. I like my setup alot, but i must say that safety / fire prevention is a key element in considering any modification / instalation pertainging to heating systems. Thanks for the post just more good info to consider
This is very interesting to me... I never considered turning on the fan to my central heat/air for circulation. As for the above concerns, my air intake is on the other side of the house, but still in an area that often hits 78 degrees. I also have the fresh air intake kit on my stove, so am I to assume that a negative pressure issue would not be of concern here. If that fan helps move warmer air to the second floor, it might be a good idea. I may not necessarily use the thermostat idea with it, but turning it on sounds like a good idea ...
The trick here is whether your ductwork is insulated and/or running through conditioned space. My ducts run through an unheated basement, so any heat that goes int he return is lost by the timeit circulates through.
Steve
Steve
It's not a great system for most people to use the HVACs for distributing heat. My ducts are insulated, but the the time the air makes the circuit from the return to the desired room, it's cooled off below what natural convection/trickle would have done. One plus is that it does keep the room w/ the stove in it from becoming too hot.
In general, Burning is correct - once folks run air through their entire HVAC, and adding the electric use of the large fan, there is usually very little real return. But, as evidenced above, it can work in some situations. In general, most folks use smaller fans - everything from room to room, to little doorway units (fit in upper corner of doorway), or like we did and simply used one of our summer pedestal fans.
The negative pressure thing is not something that will always be seen or felt. But in a relatively tight house and closed rooms, it can be pretty big time!
The negative pressure thing is not something that will always be seen or felt. But in a relatively tight house and closed rooms, it can be pretty big time!
This works super for us and we tried all sorts of fans and placement of them.
27" 3 speed, don't face the fan against the stove. Yep, not pretty but it moves the heat where you want it.
![[Hearth.com] spread the heat in the house](https://www.hearth.com/talk/attachments/imgp0238-webp.207004/ "[Hearth.com] spread the heat in the house")
27" 3 speed, don't face the fan against the stove. Yep, not pretty but it moves the heat where you want it.
Webmaster said:
I tried everything I could think of to get this to work when my stove was first installed. No luck. I now only turn on the AC blower when the house gets too hot and I want to cool it off. What works for me is a box fan on the floor in the doorway to much of the rest of the house blowing cold, floor-level air into the living room. This forces hot air through the top of the doorway and into the rest of the house. When we're hanging out in the living room, I just turn the box fan off to stop the breeze.
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