Thinking of fans suggestions?

[jtb51b]

Trying to come up with a way to move some of my excessive basement heat upstairs. I leave the basement door open but the stove is kinda blocked. What kind of fan would help me? I've enclosed a NOT scale drawing of the basement. Maybe it will help.. By the way, I have NO fans currently down there and its a 9ft ceiling, plain rafters, un finished!



Jason

 

[burnham]

Do you have an air handler/furnace in the basement? You could cut in some registers in the return duct and run the unit on fan only.

 

[jtb51b]

I do and thats a great idea. Maybe I can get my AC buddy out this weekend to do that. It stays overly warm in the basement but the heat has a tough time traveling up. The upstairs stays fairly cool lately and the basement is a sauna..

Jason

 

[Henz]

just cut in some vents through the floor and put grates in them..they make all kids of decorative ones.

 

[jtb51b]

Thought about that too. We have hardwoods under the carpet that I have been reluctant to let shine through becasue of an old floor furnace hole being in the living room. I wonder if I could get a grate made for it with a closeable register? That would actually fix a LOT of problems..

Jason

 

[jtb51b]

Leaving the door open isn't a problem. We have a dog who likes to go up and down the stairs so we're used to having it open. When I was burning K1 I didn't have a lot of excessive heat to deal with so I never really tried to heat the living area with it. Now with the wood burner if I'm burning cleanly I'm burning HOT down there!

Jason

 

[Henz]

well thats BS. parents have one that you can manually close. Code code code

 

[moondoggy]

as pook mentioned,
if you can move the cold air down the warm will move up the staircase better.
also is that furnace forced air? that would be perfect to run a fan on.

 

[burnham]

You could also take the lower door off the unit and let it suck air from the basement, providing there is no door switch that cuts power with the door removed. There's probably a hundred reasons you shouldn't do it, but I've tried it and it works. Keep in mind you will be sucking in unfiltered basement air if you go that route.

 

[fish]

removing the furnace door is not a problem as long as you dont run the furnace for heating. i tried this idea but im in a ranch and have a 65 foot span from stove to back room doors.i used a oversized filter to put over the lower door when remover and taped it there but for me it just wouldnt work with the way the house is set up. now i use mainly ceieling fans but also have 2 bathroom vents in my ceiling about 3 feet from the stove 150cfm i used 4 inch dryer vent and ran it through my attic. and i had to burry the whole dryer vent in insulation. it works great for heating the back rooms. i run the vent for about 1 hour before bed and it helps stablize the heat in the house and distribute it better.

i also notices that theres a lot of people here from NY state . im big on codes mainly for insurance purposes. a local guy had a woodstove and set up a system to move the air throught the house.he loaded the stove left for work . and had a fire wile at work. well the insurance didnt cover the damages because it was never inspected by building inspector. i had my set up inspected wile i had other electriceal done and he had no problem with it. but all county and towns are different from what they want to see .so i would see what your local inspector would suggest. all he said was do not run it at night due to the chances of smoke inhalation if somthing went wrong

 

[JimWalshin845]

This works to move air. You see them in large houses of worship and a lotta bars.. they can't all be wrong! ;-P

27" 3 speed On low it is a whisper... on high you have gale force winds.

 

[amkazen]

Hi,

We redid a house in 2006 and sold it in June 2007. It had two old floor furnaces that turned out to not be in working condition so we removed the furnaces. We then framed in the holes where the furnaces used to be in the floor, put plywood down, and then had a hardwood floor guy come and interlace new hardwood flooring. You could not tell there had ever been a furnace/hole when he was done. I think he charged us about $5.00 per sq. ft. to interlace the new hardwood floor into the old hardwood flooring, and then $2.20 per sq. ft. to refinish the flooring throughout the entire house. So, consider doing the same. Also, we were told to turn on our ceilimg fan closest to the stove in the "summer" position and the ceiling fans furthest away in the "winter" position to get the hot air out away from the stove and into the furthest rooms away. And, that does work!.

 

[daleeper]

Play with fans before knocking holes in the floor. Keep trying different configurations until you find something that works. We have had the same problem. I tried running the furnace fan all the time, but didn't like it running constantly, and it would run the fan at full speed. Installed a new heat pump this summer, and the thermastat control has a setting for circulate, which runs about 33% of the time, and at a slower fan speed. It is working much better, as there is usually just 2-5 degrees difference between the 2 floors now instead of 10, and the fan when running does not have a cooling effect. The other things we did in conjunction with this is close off one of the cold air returns upstairs, that was high on the wall (I think it was pulling off all the heat we were pumping upstairs), and keep the basement stairway door open. This increases the amount of air that is pulled into the cold air return side in the basement where the heat is and moves it upstairs. System is not perfect, but is much improved from the past. We still have problems moving the heat in to a room in the basement, and it still gets a little warm in the room where the stove is, but we are not burning much propane, which is the goal.

You need to be able to make a complete circuit with the air, much like electricity needs a complete circuit. To get the hot air up the stairs, cold air must come down. Most likely they will not flow through the same channel (stairway) so you will have to provide a way for either the warm air to get upstairs, or a way for the cold air to come down. They claim it is easier to move the cold down. We are using the air handler to pull the cold air down through some cold air returns upstairs that are close to the floor, and through the open stairway. Heat flows through the ductwork to the upstairs.

Good luck.

 

[brett1058]

after cutting floor vent to let heat rise from hot basement, can I put a low speed axial fan in vent to suck up heat from basement to second flour? I would hook it up direct to a switch to use it as needed? would this work?