Wood Stove Heat Distribution

[JPopp]

Hello all. I'm new to the site and have a question. I recently purchased a new home and it had a wood burning stove. It is an older steel stove, with a fire brick liner and a blower. The location of the stove was a bite concerning to me, but I was just happy to be getting a nice working stove. The stove is in the corner of the den, but it is a long narrow den with only a standard size door opening to the rest of the house. The issue was the den was like a sauna and it took quite a while for the heat to redistribute to the rest of the home. I was happy to get the opposite side of the home all the way up to 75 degrees on a cold 20 degree night, but I wasn't happy to see that the den was 100 degrees. I liked not having to burn oil, but it is like I have to sacrifice the use of an entire room with the stove on. I would love to have the stove in a more central location of the home, but I don't think it is feasible. Looking for any good ideas on how to transfer some heat without making my house look like a jalopy. Thanks

 

[olyman]

just use a common box fan in the doorway...blowing the cooler air into the "sauna" room..

 

[JPopp]

Thanks for the reply. However, I was thinking along the opposite lines, but I may be totally off. I was thinking the object would be to try to get that hot air into the rest of the house. A box fan is an obvious solution, but it is only useful when it is able to be there in the middle of the room and on. I was wondering how effective through wall venting near the ceiling would be?

 

[farmer steve]

Hi JPopp,welcome to the site. not sure what your oil burner/thermostat setup is but you may have just a fan mode that will run the fan only on your furnace. this will only work if you have a cold air return in your den. oh and just wait the intelligent "staff" here will have some more good answers.

 

[alleyyooper]

A picture of the room with the stove would help come up with Ideas. My dad had sort of the same set up but his den was square. He cut a hole above the door and mounted a big fan with a wall switch in the whole to push the heated air into the other room in the house with a ceiling fan forcing it down once out of the den. It didn't look to bad and it worked to keep the heat temp down in the den and higher in the rest of the house.

Al

 

[Whitespider]

A "stove" is not, and was never designed as a "whole home" heater... it is a space heater, a room heater, it's designed to make one room (the room it sits in) nice and cozy-warm. Any heat the spills out into other areas of the home is a bonus... but nothing more. A "stove" sitting in one room of the house cannot comfortably and efficiently heat the remainder of the house. The creation of drafts (and worse, noise) by attempting to moving heat with fans and such is not (IMO) comfortable or efficient... and neither is heating the stove room to 100° to facilitate it.
*

 

[Somesawguy]

I've been using a small clip on fan from walmart that seems to work reasonably well in moving air down the hallway, and into the bedrooms. Place it so that it's near the top of the doorway in the warm room, and it'll push warm air.

 

[Jonathan70]

I have a similar situation in that my den was blazing 92-99 degrees with the Lopi cod running...to the point that we moved tv & stuff into formal living room . I have a center hall colonial. The only way into the den was from the kitchen, that had a standard door opening, that the previous owner modified to a open butcher blocked pass thru..... I ran a small tornado fan on the butcher block blowing into the room to get the warmer air out to the rest of the house...this worked ok, but the 2nd floor and formal living room was still lagging in getting warm fast enough.....so be it that I am a remodeling contractor & we had plans to open up some walls .... Christmas Day & New Year's Day I took out the wall to the dining room adjacent to the den, removed the parallel wall from dining room to the center hallway & staircase to upstairs, took out butcher block wall pass thru & opened load bearing wall between dining room & kitchen... The end result is that I have much better hot air flow.... I average high 70's to mid 80's in all areas of my house now!!! My plumbers were here yesterday relocating some plumbing that was in the walls I took out & they were complaining how hot it was in the house.......no complaints though when I made them pizza on my pizza brick ...... This am when got down stairs the blower to the cod had shut off already.... Had a nice bed of coals in the cod, I added 1 24" split of oak, had it roaring in about 3-5 minutes & the blower was back on in another 10-15 mins. The temperature in all three heat zones was 67.. Last night at 10 pm they were reading 89 in room with stove, 77 in formal living room & 82 at top of stairs hallway....

Note: I know all the discussions about moisture content. My oak that was CSS last Oct -Dec I'm burning now is between 16-20% moisture!!!! I made all my splits roughly dura flame log size around in 16-24" lengths..( I did this fir 2 reasons to help dry it out faster & so it would be more manageable for my wife) . Travis industries supplied a nice moisture meter with the purchase of the stove! Wood I had to buy week prior to Sandy I burned last Dec thru the spring was wetter then what I have now..... My 1st SS chimney sweeping only was done in late march / early April I collected only 1-2 cups of creosote ash/ dust on a newspaper lining the stove bottom, did that so I could accurately collect it and measure it out..

I lost 6 trees from Sandy ..... Took down 13 more last Dec 5th... All but 2 were all oak !!!! I've got another 10-12 oaks to come down still .... I CSS all the oak in the spring,,, I have 2 rows 4 x 20' x 5-6' high stacks and 3 holze hausezens that are between 9 & 11' in diameter and are 6-8' high . I live on a ridge that gets windy ..... I top cover only and everything is drying out wonderfully...sorry for the lengthy off thread post ...

 

[c5rulz]

A "stove" is not, and was never designed as a "whole home" heater... it is a space heater, a room heater, it's designed to make one room (the room it sits in) nice and cozy-warm. Any heat the spills out into other areas of the home is a bonus... but nothing more. A "stove" sitting in one room of the house cannot comfortably and efficiently heat the remainder of the house. The creation of drafts (and worse, noise) by attempting to moving heat with fans and such is not (IMO) comfortable or efficient... and neither is heating the stove room to 100° to facilitate it.
*

Can't really argue with that.

The only thing I could see that would help is closing all the cold air returns and leaving those open in the "sauna room" open to supply air to the furnace fan. Then run the forced air furnace fan to distribute air.

 

[XSKIER]

That's what I do.

 

[Jonathan70]

Nice saw!!! What model is it?

I have an 026 & a 290 ....

 

[pyankura]

I would use a box fan to move the cooler air to the warmer room. I do this all year(heating) and my electric bill is never more than 50bux (1600sqft). As said stoves are area heaters...just so happens that the area I want to heat is my house!;-)

 

[wrx-snowdrift]

The only thing I could see that would help is closing all the cold air returns and leaving those open in the "sauna room" open to supply air to the furnace fan. Then run the forced air furnace fan to distribute air.

+1

 

[4seasons]

This same topic gets discussed about once a month. There are normally 3 schools of thought. Whitespider leads the "It's not a furnace so don't expect it to heat the whole house" group. Olyman has already mentioned the method I use of simply put a fan in the door of the hot room to push cold air out of the rest of the house. It is much easier to push cold air with the fan than to move the hot air with the fan. The hot air will flow out of the room the cool air is being pushed into thus warming the rest of the house. But the key here is having a small well insulated house in a milder climate. The third school of thought is to rig up some kind of duct to move the air around the house or open up the floor plan.
Now for truth. All 3 ways will work. The high dollar approach of replace the wood stove with a furnace tied into duct-work is the best way to get heat to the whole house. Without spending that kind of money you can rig up some sort of air distribution system to move the cold or warm air around. If you go this route remember that cold air can be moved with a fan but warm air needs some kind of duct-work to be moved. Also it would be hard to plan a makeshift plan without seeing a diagram of your house. The simple placement of a fan in the doorway to move cold air out that will be replaced with the warm air in the stove room is by far the cheapest and easiest thing to do but if you have a large house and are trying to get heat to turn multiple corners and go thru many doorways you are not going to be very happy with the results.

 

[farmer steve]

jpopp,do a google search for doorway fans. (i'm a computer dummy don't know how to do links). i found several for around $30. also saw a through the wall fan but that would require some cutting.

 

[Vermonster]

I use four of these to move air towards the back end of the house where the bedrooms are.
Back of the house is comfortable for sleeping and the rooms with the stoves are comfortable for living space. A cheap and non-invasive solution to more evenly heat your house. They mount with two slotted screws for easy removal.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Suncourt-EntreeAir-Door-Frame-Fan-in-White-RR100/100080304#

 

[VW Splitter]

Hot air rises. A box fan in the doorway blowing the cold air into the hot room is a cheep and easy start to a fix. I have a return air grill cut into the ceiling right above the wood stove with duct work in the attic leading to 2 back bedrooms. There is a inline fan in the duct that I turn on when I want to add heat to the back of the house. Works like a charm.

 

[Chris-PA]

It depends on what kind of heating system you have. If you have a forced hot air system then making an override to allow you to run the blower and pull hot air out of the room (hopefully it has a return) will be the least jury-rigged approach. But you will probably want to block off other returns (a throw rug will do).

This is what I do, but don't expect the kind of even heat distribution that a central heating system produces. I personally could care less about even heat, so it's fine. Nonetheless, my stove is in the basement in the room next to the old furnace and blower. The main return ducts go through the ceiling of the room with the stove and I've modified them with big grills to pull hot air off the top of that room. Even with that it is common for that room to get to 100. But it does keep the rest of the house comfy, at least as far as we're concerned.

 

[Whitespider]

If you have a forced hot air system then making an override to allow you to run the blower and pull hot air out of the room (hopefully it has a return) will be the least jury-rigged approach. But you will probably want to block off other returns (a throw rug will do).

Hmmmm....... (shrug)
My approach would be the opposite. I would block the return in the stove room and open them in the far rooms. The idea would be (in my mind) to move the cold air to the stove (just as the system moves cold air to the furnace) and pull warm air from the stove room to other parts of the house. My thinking is that would create less cold drafts and keep the temperature of the stove room moderated.

 

[Chris-PA]

Hmmmm....... (shrug)
My approach would be the opposite. I would block the return in the stove room and open them in the far rooms. The idea would be (in my mind) to move the cold air to the stove (just as the system moves cold air to the furnace) and pull warm air from the stove room to other parts of the house. My thinking is that would create less cold drafts and keep the temperature of the stove room moderated.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Since the goal is to circulate the air, one way or the other you'll need to move cool air in and hot air out. I think it depends more on the configuration of the returns and outlets in that room - if it has a small return then it would be best to do it your way, but you'll end up wanting to move as much air through the room as you can and so you may need to rebalance the ducts.

Like I said, it's hard to keep the basement room cool even with a lot of air moving through it. The basement stairs stays open and serves as a the main return duct, while air is pulled off the top. It's plenty drafty in the basement, but the cool air coming down the stairs feels good - my desk sits right at the bottom of it. The rest of the house is not drafty at all.

One of these years I'm going to get around to installing an iron floor grate right above the stove - or in front really as it is installed in an old walk-in fireplace.