Will this work-getting heat to our upstairs

[Hatrackr]

We have a 2 story colonial kitchen dining room 1/2 bath living room all 1st floor with the bedrooms above. Our fireplace and insert sit in a room off to the side in a 1 story family room behind our attached garage on the wall furthest from the rest of the house. The attic lines up with our hallway in the second story so my question is can I put a vent with insulated duct through the attic with a fan on one end to pull from the stove room to our upstairs. If so should I put the vent above the stove ( longer run of pipe) or closer to the 2nd story for a shorter run of pipe and where should the fan be- should I push or pull the warm air or put an inline duct fan in the middle? What kind of fan/vent should I use? I'll try and draw a layout to post

 

[begreen]

It might work if the duct is well insulated to R=8 or higher. Don't try to pull the heat from the stove. Instead you'll want to set it up so that the fan sucks the air from an upstairs hallway (or room that keeps the door open). The duct should blow the cooler upstairs air into the stove room. There will be less worry about duct heat loss this ways and it will set up a convective flow that will pull heat through the house. Warmer air will replace the displaced cooler upstairs air. It should be a 6" duct with say about a 150 CFM fan. Panasonic makes a nice quiet, inline bathroom fan that should work for this application.

 

[Hatrackr]

Thanks I'm going to try to use a box fan to start and see how well it heats the rest of the house but if that isn't sufficient I want to have my back up plan in place i don't mind the bedrooms being cooler but knowing my wife I'll be cutting a couple holes and getting some duct work!

 

[begreen]

If you use a box fan where will it be placed? Remember it is easier to work with nature and push cool air down low. Look at the dozens of threads here on moving the heat (though actually the solution is moving the cold).

Try this trick. It works quite well assuming that there is a line of sight path between the cooler area and the stove room. The idea is to blow the cooler air down at floor level, toward the stove. For more even heat in the house put the box fan in a cooler room within sight of the stove room, placed on the floor, pointing toward the woodstove room. Run it on low speed. It will blow the cooler air down low, toward the woodstove. The denser cool air will be replaced with lighter warm air from the stove room. Running this way you should notice at least a 5F increase in the room temp after about 30 minutes running. And the stove room temp should drop by a corresponding 5+ degrees.

 

[Hatrackr]

I've been scoping out the threads on using fans I have a straight shot from the dining room which is furthest away from the stove through the kitchen into the stove room so I'm hoping that will be enough when I did a test fire the other night I was surprised at how well the blower on the insert moved the heat so maybe the fan will be enough

 

[Sconnie Burner]

As mentioned move the cooler air towards the stove. A ceiling duct blowing into the stove area should work just as well as a fan blowing on the floor and less unsightly. I use my furnace ducts to create the same effect. I shut all ducts upstairs and open the couple in the basement family room where the woodstove is. It seemed to work for the couple weeks I tried it when we first moved into the house last Feb. I plan on doing some more experimenting this year.

 

[Hatrackr]

Does that help heat the basement too? I'm worried that not running the furnace will make the basement too cold and freeze pipes we had -25 temps last year in Wisconsin and any savings heating with wood would be lost if I bust a pipe!

 

[begreen]

That can unbalance the system and risks burning out the blower motor which could get expensive. Closing off too many registers can cause the blower to run too fast. Also, a lot of home's ductwork is poorly sealed and even poorer insulated. The heat loss via the ductwork can counter the gains in moving air.