Wood Stove Heat Distribution

[Bushmans]

Welcome to AS! There is a wealth of knowledge here to help you in your new wood burning endeavors!
I heat my entire house with one of those old steel stoves. However I live in a bi-level and the stove is on the lower level. It heats the entire lower level quite nicely. The heat naturally rises up the stairwell and heats the upstairs.
I also installed a bathroom vent fan in the ceiling a couple feet from the stove. Wired it to a new switch on the wall. The vent is connected to a 4" flexible dryer vent tube. I snaked the vent through the cold air return trunkline of my furnace and connected it to the back of the cold air return faceplate upstairs. It pulls all the heat off the ceiling downstairs and blows it out the cold air return plate upstairs. The temps coming out of the little 4" tube are around 90-95 degrees.

The downstairs does get warm and can get quite hot if I let it. This morning it was 17 degrees below zero and the house was down to 65 degrees. So I blasted the stove downstairs and within a couple hours the upstairs was back at 70.

I haven't used the furnace at all this winter. The switch is off and the gas line shut off is in the off position.

 

[Ironworker]

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.
*

I guess that all depends on the design of the house, I happen to be lucky that my stove room has one 6' opening on one side and a 4' opening on the other with the stairs right next to the 4' opening, it actually acts like a giant vanturi blowing the hot air up. I noticed this my first year in the new house when we just used the fire place and I noticed how easily the hot air moved around, for a matter of fact I don't even use the blower on my insert till it gets in the upper 30's to low 40's.

 

[farmer steve]

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#

thanks vermonster.ya can't teach an old fart the computer. thats the best price for that fan. gonna buy one for the shop this weekend.

 

[ole yukon]

I heat my whole house with a wood stove. I just turn on the furnace blower and it circulates through the house.

 

[cmsmoke]

I've been heating my house with a wood stove for years. Right now it is 5 degrees outside, 78 where the stove is and 74 in the coldest bedroom upstairs. I use a fan to help move the cold air down. There are no other heating ducts as the backup is oil hot water. The Amish have used circulating stoves forever, they cut cold air returns in the floor and extend them down through the ceiling about a foot to help the cold air fall. They do this in a few rooms to heat evenly. One of these days I am going to do the same.

 

[XSKIER]

Nice saw!!! What model is it?

I have an 026 & a 290 ....

MS 261 C-M VW. I stihl have a MS 260 PRO for a backup or loaner. A MS 290 got me started wood burning though.

 

[Vermonster]

thanks vermonster.ya can't teach an old fart the computer. thats the best price for that fan. gonna buy one for the shop this weekend.

You betcha. Central heating is hydronics via oil fired Ultimate furnace. So turning on the furnace to circulate air like a lot of these guys are suggesting isn't an option for me. When it gets really cold like tonight (-20 - -30F) I will turn up both zone's thermostats occasionally to ensure no frozen pipes.
With two wood stoves cranking I need to be careful not to allow the hydronics to sit idle in these arctic conditions. Cheers!!

 

[woodchuck357]

Fans setting on the floor moving cold air toward the stove work best for temporary situations, cold air is denser. I keep fires burning in 5 houses, all of them heated with a single stove, none of them is large but 3 have central heat with duct work. Running the fan in the duct helps even the temp out even if the return air is not in the room that has the wood stove. The one with the return air in the room with the stove does work best.

 

[Davej_07]

As a 20year sheetmetal worker I have to chime in. Some may think that blowing warm air or pulling cold air does th same thing. It does not. You will move warm air more efficiently by PULLING cold air back to the heat source. By pulling the cold air back to th stove, you create a convection which will draw warm air to where you want it.

Dave

 

[zogger]

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 ...

that was a nice read actually.

 

[Chris-PA]

Fans setting on the floor moving cold air toward the stove work best for temporary situations, cold air is denser. I keep fires burning in 5 houses, all of them heated with a single stove, none of them is large but 3 have central heat with duct work. Running the fan in the duct helps even the temp out even if the return air is not in the room that has the wood stove. The one with the return air in the room with the stove does work best.

I'm not sure quite what you meant - it's a circulation loop and it seems like you have two choices: Either the fan is pulling in cooler air and blowing toward the stove, or warmer air and blowing away from the stove.

In my case the blower is pulling warm air off the top of the room with the stove and blowing it out through the ducting to the rest of the house - but in doing so it is pulling cool air into the room at quite high velocity.

The flow rate has to be equal on the fan inlet and outlet, although the local velocity doesn't.

This is a good discussion though - I feel like playing and am going to try it with the flow reversed. The way I have it set up I can do that pretty easily, as there are several outlets into that room.

 

[JPopp]

Thanks for all the input. I tried the simplest fix over the past few days and was extremely happy with the results. A box fan on the floor blowing cold air into the stove room did the trick. The stove room averaged about 75-80 degrees and the far bedroom average about 70-72 degrees. Just happy to not be using oil. Thanks!!!

 

[Mad Professor]

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?

Fan on the floor works better