# getting heat to move to second floor



## rired (Oct 29, 2008)

I have a jotul 500 woodstove and I love it. Problem is the room its in overheats and other roomsdon`t get that warm and second floor is even colder. I thought the warm air would rise to second floor as heat rises. I have a central stairway leading to second floor and its only 13 feet away from stove location. What can I do to improve this situation. Should I add registers in first floor ceiling to allow heat from stove to rise up into second floor. I was thinking maybe putting a register in the same room that the stove is in. For safety reasons I would use one with fire damper which has a link that will melt if there is a fire and shut opening thus cutting off spread of  fire to second floor thru register. Does this seem like a good idea? What other options do I have to get that heat to move thru the whole house and especially to the second floor? Also how can I deal with the over heating problem of the room that the stove is in? I am thinking maybe I should have got a wood boiler instead of a wood stove but if I can just get the wood stove to heat a little more evenly I will be happy with that. Any advice regarding this would be helpful . Thanks!


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## cmonSTART (Oct 29, 2008)

Unless you have home designed for wood heat it is by nature going to be warmer in the room with the stove.  Moving air around, particularly in an old new england farm house such as mine, can be a challenge.  But, it is do-able.  We found some nice doorway fans which live in the upper corners of the doorways off our living room and move warm air up towards the stairs.  This helps a lot, but it is still noticeably cooler upstairs in the bedrooms, especially with the doors shut.  Vents do help.  Our living room can be 75 to 80 with our bedroom upstairs around 60 in the winter.


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## begreen (Oct 29, 2008)

Welcome rired. If you can post a sketch of the floor plans, that often helps. We can then add some fans and arrows to diagram good air flow.


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## Brian VT (Oct 30, 2008)

Oh, do me ! lol

Here's a sketch of my basement. The stove is at the bottom middle. There's an open stairwell in the upper right.
Both the basement and room above are finished and insulated. Well, the ceiling/floor between isn't.
I'm thinking about cutting a floor register on the left to bring the cooler air down to the stove to coax some heat up the stairwell. 
I'd appreciate your thoughts before cutting.


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## Wet1 (Oct 30, 2008)

Pics of the first floor...


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## Brian VT (Oct 30, 2008)

Pretty much a wide open room above. There's a hallway from the upper right that goes to the bedrooms wing and a large opening to a big room on the lower left
but I don't expect to get heat to them from the basement. I don't expect to heat more than the room the stove is in but if I can get some up the stairwell that'd be great.


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## begreen (Oct 30, 2008)

Based on the drawing, it looks like a poor layout for a basement stove if the intent is to heat upstairs. But I am confused. The layout does not show a central staircase. It appears to be off to the side. Also, is the basement unpartitioned and one large open space?

Try this for starters. Set a table or box fan, at the top of the stairwell, on the floor, pointed down the stairs. Turn it on low speed and see how well it cools the lower floor while warming the next floor.


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## Brian VT (Oct 30, 2008)

The basement room with the stove and the room above it are the same size. The large rectangle in the upper right is an open stairway cutout (3'x8'?). The medium rectangle is the stove downstairs. The small rectangle is where I'm thinking of putting a floor register. I'm not bent on heating upstairs but if the register would help coax some surplus heat up there it might be nice.
I'll try a fan blowing down the stairwell. Might that simulate the effect of the floor register ?


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## DiscoInferno (Oct 30, 2008)

rired said:
			
		

> I have a jotul 500 woodstove and I love it. Problem is the room its in overheats and other roomsdon`t get that warm and second floor is even colder. I thought the warm air would rise to second floor as heat rises. I have a central stairway leading to second floor and its only 13 feet away from stove location. What can I do to improve this situation.



Is there a header above the doorway between the stove room and the stairwell?  I was pleasantly surprised to find out how well heat rose up my stairwell, and it seems the secret is a lack of headers from the fireplace to the stairs combined with headers in all other directions.  It's channeled right up there.  Of course you can't just go around cutting out headers, so I'm not sure what to suggest in that respect.


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## jgrimes (Oct 30, 2008)

The problem is not getting the hot air up to the second floor. It is getting the trapped cold air out of the upstairs rooms. 
Forget the fans. 
Go to each room on the second floor that you want to be warmer.  On the out side wall of the room (under a window if possible) place a vent in the floor. Duct the vent to the floor of the basement. The cold air in the room will drop into the vent,  then down the vent to the basement floor.  It will then travel across the basement to the stove. There it will be heated and returned up the stairs to be drawn back into the room.  This will also help cool the basement.  Also if you keep the second floor room doors closed. Place a vent above the door.  
I have used this method for about 20 years.  The basement is about 75 to 80 degrees and master bedroom  upstairs, in back of house, is about 65 ( good for sleeping).


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## rired (Oct 30, 2008)

why wouldn`t vents on second floor floor ( first floor ceiling ) do the same thing as the basement application<; the only difference is we are talking about first floor stove location and dropping cold air from 2nd to 1st? what do you think j grimes and others?. i will try to get a sketch on soon


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## Wet1 (Oct 30, 2008)

I'd place a cold air return vent in the lower left of the drawing.  I'd also place a shrouded fan in this duct (flowing towards the basement).  The warm air will be forced up the staircase, pulled across the house (from right to left), and then return back down to the basement.  You can do it w/o the fan, but you'll move a lot more warm air using a fan in the cold air return.  Consider hooking the duct fan to a thermostat so it only runs when the basement is warm.


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## RedRanger (Oct 30, 2008)

Rired:  when you say the room with the stove overheats, what kind of temps are we talking about?

In our bi-level house the room with the insert has to get to 80+ do get good circulation going out of the room and up the stairs. I have lots of fans, doorway, ceiling, but only use the doorway fan and the fan on the insert to speed things up a bit.  Running the other fans seems to make no difference at all.  We also have 4 1/2 ft. wide stairways.

Okay, in this situation, I can feel the cooler air moving across the floor towards the insert, and when I stand up and put my hand near the ceiling, you can feel the warm air moving out of the room and up the stairs. (I have no fan blowing cold air towards the insert).  This heat has to go to the second level, then a 180 degree turn and up to the third level, then a 180 degree turn to reach the fourth level.  Last week, late in the evening, the temps were--1st level 84, 2nd level 80-3rd level 70 and finally 4th level 62.  Outside temps were 34-38 degrees F.


This works fine for us, only bummer is that we have to move up to the living room, usually by 8 pm.  Just too hot in the room with the insert.  I`m probably one of the least educated people on this forum and so am having a difficult time understanding why the heat will rise in our house and not yours??   Are we just "plain lucky"?  I`m just thinking that heat always seems to go up-period!!    Doesn`t it??

When I am describing stairways, should point out that each stairway is no more than 8 stairs max.


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## jjt42 (Oct 30, 2008)

I live in an old farmhouse, and one of the neat efficency designs in it (well, probably the only efficiency design in it) is a 2x2 cutout in the 2nd floor directly above our wood stove. The cutout is covered by a metal grate. Warm air from the stove travels straight up through it, and keeps our bedroom nice and warm. It would be pretty easy to install one of these- just make sure you aren't cutting through any floor joists. I don't know when these went out of style (our house dates to 1900), but I think it's a pretty simple way to get warm air up to the 2nd floor.


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## rired (Oct 31, 2008)

The room with my stove does reach 80 and that`s when the wife starts complaining about it! The second floor does heat up somewhat but I think it needs some help to improve circulation. I am thinking a register in the cieling  above the stove might help but I think it will need a fire damper in it to meet builing codes .


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## RedRanger (Oct 31, 2008)

rired said:
			
		

> The room with my stove does reach 80 and that`s when the wife starts complaining about it! The second floor does heat up somewhat but I think it needs some help to improve circulation. I am thinking a register in the cieling  above the stove might help but I think it will need a fire damper in it to meet builing codes .



For sure you need the firedamper--absoutley.

Question-how long a time are you allowing for that heat to rise??   In our case, whether we use the doorway fan or not, it still takes at least 6-7 hours to realize decent heat upstairs.  That is why we went for so-called "overkill" with the larger firebox in the room where the insert is.  I mean, we can always open windows, build a smaller fire etc.  But if you are trying to do what we are attempting, that is heat the upstairs as well, then the longer burntime you can accomplish, the better--ie-don`t give the house a chance to cool down.  I know that my wife is amazed that in the morning, maybe the temp upstairs only reads approx.62F, but it feels much warmer cause the floors are warm,and the humidity has also been lowered.

Now there is the dilema, you must try as much as possible to keep the heat constant.  And actually with these newer stoves/inserts, it really doesn`t take that much more wood to do so.  And if you-unlike me-have hardwood to burn then you are golden..  Simply put, keep the home fires burning,adjust for heat demand, but just don`t let it go out-and you should soon see that the upstairs is reasonably comfy as well.   Try it and report back..


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## rired (Oct 31, 2008)

Last night I stoked the stove full @ 10 and it was about 71 and climbing on 1st and 68 upstairs. When I got up at 530 this morning it was 68 down stairs and 66 on second foor. That was pretty good performance considering it was in the 20`s outside! Also I haven`t used my favorite firewood yet oak and walnut as it is stilldrying out. I think once I start using the hardwood I will get a few more btu`s. Right now I am burning elm, ash and poplar etc which is ok but its not like oak which seems to give off more heat and burn better! I will have to experiment and adjust as this is my first season trying to heat my home with a wood stove. Thanks for your suggestions


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