Hey all...
I have a "circular" floor plan, meaning, I have a typical old New England farmhouse, with two rooms in the front (left and right at the front door, stairs going up the middle), a kitchen in the back, and all meeting in a circular floor plan. Make sense?
Well... there are two rooms that have been added to the house, both off the main circle, with one directly in line with where our PE Summit faces.
Might serve to say that our stove doesn't draft well, and our house is very old, with lots of likely leaks, creaks, etc.. The stove is located at an outside front corner of the house (left room from front), and is piped fairly directly out the wall and up a good run.
My dilemma is this: The two rooms outside the circle get, really, no big benefit from the stove, not even the room that is about 20' from the face of the stove. The heat seems to travel the circle, but not into the rooms in any meaningful way. Those rooms generally stay cooler than the rest of the house. So, I know I could do fans all over the place, etc... but I don't want to fuss with all of that, so we just go with the oil heat for those rooms, and they're both, coincidentally, on separate zones, so we go with that. No biggie.
However... Over the past couple of years, I've been noticing some peculiarities... First, when we're in the circular part of the house, and we open one of the doors to these rooms, the temp in the circle area starts to drop rapidly, presumably, because the cool from those rooms is being sucked into the circle (although, you think it would be opposite, since heat generally travels to displace cold). However, if you're IN those rooms, and the door opens, the temp in THOSE rooms drop... go figure! Even though, if we follow scientific properties, the heat from the circle should travel INTO the adjacent rooms to displace the cold air.
Summary: In the circular rooms, open the doors to the adjacent rooms... circle cools down. In the adjacent rooms, open doors, those rooms cool down. Seems that you're in a pinch, one way or the other, unless you keep the doors closed. Again, no biggie. If I'm in the adjacent rooms, I just keep the doors closed to retain the heat.
Oddly, if you leave those doors closed all night, those rooms chill down, rather than stay warmer, which seems contradictory to what we experience when you're in those rooms and open and close doors (you stay warmer). If I leave those doors open all night, the rooms don't chill out as much.
Sound convoluted?
Do you guys have any philosophies as to what you think is happening, from a scientific, or stove intuition, point of view? What do you guys/gals do for adjacent rooms that don't get good stove heat, do you keep doors open, or closed? Have you had similar experiences or stories?
I have a "circular" floor plan, meaning, I have a typical old New England farmhouse, with two rooms in the front (left and right at the front door, stairs going up the middle), a kitchen in the back, and all meeting in a circular floor plan. Make sense?
Well... there are two rooms that have been added to the house, both off the main circle, with one directly in line with where our PE Summit faces.
Might serve to say that our stove doesn't draft well, and our house is very old, with lots of likely leaks, creaks, etc.. The stove is located at an outside front corner of the house (left room from front), and is piped fairly directly out the wall and up a good run.
My dilemma is this: The two rooms outside the circle get, really, no big benefit from the stove, not even the room that is about 20' from the face of the stove. The heat seems to travel the circle, but not into the rooms in any meaningful way. Those rooms generally stay cooler than the rest of the house. So, I know I could do fans all over the place, etc... but I don't want to fuss with all of that, so we just go with the oil heat for those rooms, and they're both, coincidentally, on separate zones, so we go with that. No biggie.
However... Over the past couple of years, I've been noticing some peculiarities... First, when we're in the circular part of the house, and we open one of the doors to these rooms, the temp in the circle area starts to drop rapidly, presumably, because the cool from those rooms is being sucked into the circle (although, you think it would be opposite, since heat generally travels to displace cold). However, if you're IN those rooms, and the door opens, the temp in THOSE rooms drop... go figure! Even though, if we follow scientific properties, the heat from the circle should travel INTO the adjacent rooms to displace the cold air.
Summary: In the circular rooms, open the doors to the adjacent rooms... circle cools down. In the adjacent rooms, open doors, those rooms cool down. Seems that you're in a pinch, one way or the other, unless you keep the doors closed. Again, no biggie. If I'm in the adjacent rooms, I just keep the doors closed to retain the heat.
Oddly, if you leave those doors closed all night, those rooms chill down, rather than stay warmer, which seems contradictory to what we experience when you're in those rooms and open and close doors (you stay warmer). If I leave those doors open all night, the rooms don't chill out as much.
Sound convoluted?
Do you guys have any philosophies as to what you think is happening, from a scientific, or stove intuition, point of view? What do you guys/gals do for adjacent rooms that don't get good stove heat, do you keep doors open, or closed? Have you had similar experiences or stories?
