Circulating warm air to other rooms?

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skmag357

skmag357

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Hey guys,
My stove is in a small addition on the front part of my house. I was wondering how you guys circulate the warm air into other areas of the house? The stove heats downstairs but upstairs is pretty cold. Right now, I am using to box fans to move the air.Let me know. thanks
 
bushinspector

bushinspector

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Very difficut thing to do since cold air is heaver than warm air. One of the things that I have been paying attention to is to use a fan to push the cold air OUT. Circulating warm air will natually occur if there is a negative pressure in the room.
 
stint

stint

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Old center hall colonial Farmhouse.

What worked wonders for me with Jotul F600 in living room.
Put a floor resister in each end of room with stove. Cold air billows down from upstairs stairway, and warm air blasts up thru vents.
http://www.floorregisters.net/

Used 2 vents on each end, one in ceiling, and directly above it, one in floor upstairs.

Actually will almost blow out candle sometime with moving air...all convection, no electricity$$ for more fans
 
sachsmo

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Read that you should push the cold air towards the stove. The warm air will fill in the voids and have a "train" effect. If you have a forced air furnace, you could try running just the fan to circulate some warm air. (if cold air return is near the stove)
 
CrappieKeith

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When I was a kid our farm house had grates in the floor upstairs in every room. We had an old pot belly in the basement with a 5x5 grate over it.Our whole house heated on gravity.
 
numnuts

numnuts

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I had the same issue, although we are in a 1 level ranch style home. My solution, albeit rather involved, works fantastically. I bought a Panasonic FV-40NLF1 8" inline vent blower. Very quite and very efficient (132W 120V). Had I known, I would have gotton a smaller blower, 440 CFM is way too much and had to throttle it down. The ceiling in the living room (where the stove is) is vaulted so it collects heat real well. I installed a 12" sq intake duct at the peak of the ceiling and then distrubute via 4" ducts to small registers in each bedroom. I have it thermostatically controlled so when the room heats up, the fan turns on. If the fire burns down and the room cools down, the fan turns off. Really sweet setup that has allowed me to not run the furnace yet this year. People are pretty impressed with how even the temp is in our house.
 
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Tim Carroll

Tim Carroll

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I use the fan on my forced air furnace to move the heat around. I think that the fan is not so much pushing the warm air out the air vents but pulling the heat toward the cold air returns. The result of this is that my upstairs (2100 sq ft) is toasty warm but the basement is much cooler.
 
reccutter

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I had the same issue, although we are in a 1 level ranch style home. My solution, albeit rather involved, works fantastically. I bought a Panasonic FV-40NLF1 8" inline vent blower. Very quite and very efficient (132W 120V). Had I known, I would have gotton a smaller blower, 440 CFM is way too much and had to throttle it down. The ceiling in the living room (where the stove is) is vaulted so it collects heat real well. I installed a 12" sq intake duct at the peak of the ceiling and then distrubute via 4" ducts to small registers in each bedroom. I have it thermostatically controlled so when the room heats up, the fan turns on. If the fire burns down and the room cools down, the fan turns off. Really sweet setup that has allowed me to not run the furnace yet this year. People are pretty impressed with how even the temp is in our house.

I had the same idea in mind. For now I'm keeping the ceiling fan above stove running. Stoves in living room and bedrooms still a little cool.My question from a HVAC point of view would it make more sense to suck air from bedrooms and blow it to above stove? or vice versa?
 
jimdad07

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I had the same idea in mind. For now I'm keeping the ceiling fan above stove running. Stoves in living room and bedrooms still a little cool.My question from a HVAC point of view would it make more sense to suck air from bedrooms and blow it to above stove? or vice versa?

If you are pulling the air off of the ceiling, then you are forcing it to other points which in turn force the cold air to the heated space because that is the only place that is left for the air to go unless you have the doors to your other rooms closed, at that point, you will build static pressure and won't move any air. Basically all you have to do is get the air moving and it will circulate the cold air back to the stove to get heated. I have the same setup in my house where I have the stove on one end in a great room with a vaulted ceiling and a cold air return in the ceiling. When the living room gets too hot, I turn the blower on and it pulls the warm air out and sends it to the rest of the house. This does not work very well if you are pulling the air too fast. I have a Trane variable speed furnace that I have set the dip switches to the lowest speed setting on the blower. The slower the better.
 
unclemoustache

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Not a lot of secrets in a house like that,eh?

Speaking of secrets, my brother and his wife kept a baby monitor in their bedroom when the baby slept, and the speaker was in the kitchen/living room area. Sometimes they would forget to turn the monitor off when they went to bed, and when relatives came to visit for several days,...well, let's just say there was great potential for some very interesting listening!!

To get back to the thread, I had planned to do the convection thing also, but never got around to it, being somewhat hesitant to cut holes in the floor/ceiling. I think I might do the fan, but it wouldn't help keep the upstairs warmer.
 
reccutter

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Thanks NN and Jd, definitely going to hook up a small inline fan in attic above stove.Run ducts to bedrooms maybe even basement.I like the t-stat idea sometimes the living room can get very warm to the point of opening windows.
 
jimdad07

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Thanks NN and Jd, definitely going to hook up a small inline fan in attic above stove.Run ducts to bedrooms maybe even basement.I like the t-stat idea sometimes the living room can get very warm to the point of opening windows.

I am an HVAC tech for a living (hope I don't sound like a cocky d$%k), if you need any advice, just send a pm and I will help all I can.
 
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