Vent over door for heat distribution

[BK's_ghost]

Hello fellow burners!

I have learned a lot on here, and am loving my first full season of burning. I wanted to ask if anyone has any advice or similar experience before cutting a hole in my wall.

Would cutting a vent above the door between my kitchen and living/dinning/stove room help keep the kitchen significantly warmer? Please see the attached floor plan sketch.

Fan on the floor of the kitchen blowing into the stove room does work quite well. Without the fan, the kitchen gets cold regardless of what the stove is doing. My real question is would the vent above the door work well enough that we could forgo the fan, at least most of the time?

Complicating this is that the main celling height is 8’ while the kitchen addition is 7’. However, the proposed vent would be the lowest elevation that heat could escape the ‘heat lake’ effect of the stove room.


For reference, the house is old construction, 1700 sf two story, 8000 hdd climate, heated from the main floor with a smallish fully radiant stove. So far so good, obviously the real test is still coming.

 

[begreen]

A transom vent would not make a lot of difference, unfortunately. An isolated room like the kitchen in this floorplan is going to need convective assistance. This could be done with an insulated duct and inline fan in the basement that pulls air from the kitchen and blows it into the stove area.

 

[BK's_ghost]

Hmm, ok thanks for the reply. Sounds like the real solution would be more difficult and still uses a fan, but I really like that it would reduce the cooler air moving along at foot level.

Do you think depressurizing the kitchen with a vent/fan onto the basement would be enough or does it need to be brought directly into the stove room? It doesn’t seem to take too much floor fan action to get the heat in there. I wouldn’t really consider it lost heat as I am a little worried about the February basement temperature.

 

[begreen]

Do you think depressurizing the kitchen with a vent/fan onto the basement would be enough or does it need to be brought directly into the stove room? It doesn’t seem to take too much floor fan action to get the heat in there. I wouldn’t really consider it lost heat as I am a little worried about the February basement temperature.

I don't think so, but could be wrong. My concern would be that it might pull in more cold air from outside into the kitchen and house without the convection loop to the stove room. The basement heating is a separate problem that is rarely solved from the floor above.

 

[BK's_ghost]

Good point. I guess it’s a closed vent loop or live with the fan. Thank you for the help!