Whole House Recirculator

[RobbieB]

I ordered up a (broken link removed to http://www.broan.com/products/product/6524caff-ccff-47dc-95c7-037e94fb6010).

My house is 1400 sq-ft and has a horseshoe config. This little gem will go in my bedroom closet (one end of horseshoe) through the wall and into the dining room (other end of horseshoe) and close the loop which has the wood burning stove in the living room (middle of the horseshoe)

It will mount high right through the 4.5 inch thick wall. There will be no pressure drop, so flow will be as advertised.

According to my calcs it will re-cycle the whole house in 30 minutes. Should work well for keeping the house temp more even when I'm running the stove.

 

[maple1]

I wonder if mounting low and moving air the opposite way might move more air? Since cooler air is denser & fans usually mover cooler air better than warm air. Just a thought.

 

[RobbieB]

I think that mounting lower would work better but then I would have more "dust bunnies" and stuff on the floor to get in the way. As far as the direction goes I think blowing the cold air out of the cold room into the warm area (and consequently pulling the warm air in) is best from what I've read here.

I have a ceiling fan in the stove room and another in the bedroom to mix the air in those rooms.

 

[RobbieB]

Got the 12" x 12" hole cut thru the wall;



Internal framing tomorrow and fan and first test with stove should be the day after.

 

[RobbieB]

The fan is in and was tested last night;



It works! Not quite as good as I hoped (back bedroom still pretty cold wrt stove room) but there was a noticeable improvement not withstanding. The stove room is always going to be hotter from all the radiant heat, but at least I gained a few degrees of "evenness"

When I first turned it on you could feel all the cold coming out but when I shut it down it was much less so. Worth the dough and the effort -

 

[Dobish]

i have been thinking about doing something like this, but can't figure out the best way to move air around my house. We are not a horseshoe, and moving heat around is really hard in our place....

 

[blades]

Run a duct from the fan down to the floor you can add a filter at the floor level that way you are pulling cold air out of the room and the hot will naturally flow to fill in the negative pressure in that room. with the fan mounted high you are removing mostly heated air from the room unless you are running a ceiling fan that is pulling up from the floor at the same time. Hot air rises it will be concentrated at the ceiling with the cold air laying on the floor.

 

[RobbieB]

I have a ceiling fan in the cold (bed) room.

I also replaced the shaded pole motor it came with a 1/20 HP @ 1.6 amps with a PSC version twice as efficient 1/20 HP @ .8 amps. I ran it all night last night and it kept the bedroom a little warmer even w/o the stove running, just recirculating the house air being heated by the nat gas furnace.

It works well.

 

[RobbieB]

i have been thinking about doing something like this, but can't figure out the best way to move air around my house. We are not a horseshoe, and moving heat around is really hard in our place....

If you can get into the attic you can use one of these and some flex duct with a couple of registers and go from any room to another.

 

[Dobish]

If you can get into the attic you can use one of these and some flex duct with a couple of registers and go from any room to another.

There is no attic near the stove. My layout is odd

 

[RobbieB]

I found the missing piece, the way to suck out the colder air w/o a huge vent pipe going to the floor. A 12" x 12" gable vent at the hardware store. Today I will install this into my bedroom closet door a foot off the ground.

When the door is shut the air will come from low. No ducting, no dust bunnies in the motor/fan unit and nobody stacks stuff in front of or behind a door that is in use regularly.

 

[RobbieB]

12" x 12" Gable vent installed low on closet door. Works great!, tested last night. Improved the heat distribution noticeably as well as lowered the noise in the bedroom. when standing in the closed closet with the fan on you can feel a mighty breeze coming right up at you.



A Rotozip tool made quick work of the hollow door and I glued in 3/4 pine all around the inside of the cutout.

Today I will do a little molding work around the inside to pretty it up -