# Venting a pellet stove to higher floor



## carlg (Nov 9, 2010)

We have a small cape code home in Southern PA.  We have a finished basement and there is no heat in the basement.  We are planning to get a pellet stove for the basement.  This will not be the primary source of heat for our home.  We are buying it because we like it and we need some heat in our finished basement (although this stove is most likely overkill for our basement).

My question is this:
Is it possible to cut a hole in the ceiling of the basement and in the floor of the main floor of my home and place like a vent between the 2 floors?  I would make this hole directly above the stove and would finish it off with metal vent frames so it looks good.  My thoughts are that the heat from my basement could throw some heat upwards through this vent into the primary living room of my house.  I'm thinking since heat rises and the vent would be directly over the stove, it should throw a nice amount of heat upstairs maybe even saving me a few bucks on the primary heating bill.

Does this sound like a reasonable plan?

Thanks for the advice.
Carl


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## SmokeyTheBear (Nov 9, 2010)

And how would the return cold air would make it to the stove in order to set up the air circulation?

The heat that the stove produced is forced out from the pellet stove front and does not go directly up.

How is the basement separated from the upper floor.

Please note my stove is in a finished basement and I do heat better than 1800 square feet of floor space, 1344 of which is one level above the stove room.  Other than the garage it is the heating system for the house.   Garage and hot water is off of an oil fired hot water system (well actually the entire 2688 square feet can be heated with it).  

My stove is in the corner pointed to the far corner of the room and 20 feet from the stairwell leading to the primary living space.   My stairwell at the top has a half wall.  Cold air comes down over the stairs and the warm air goes up over it and up and over the half wall.


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## carlg (Nov 9, 2010)

Please bear with me as I don't know much about this topic, but wouldn't the hot air rise?

If I didn't have a vent above the stove, then where would the cold air be coming from?

The two floors are separated by a drop ceiling in the basement, about 12 inches of dead space and a hardwood floor on the upper level.


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## carlg (Nov 9, 2010)

By the way, in your home, how do you get the heat to go from the downstairs to the upstairs?
I have about 400 sq feet in the basement and about 1000 on the floor above the basement.  Although there is heat there, it couldn't hurt to throw some extra up.

Thanks for all the info.

Carl


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## Exmasonite (Nov 9, 2010)

Carl-

I just bought a house with the stove in the basement and am having some similar issues moving heat around.  I have cut 2 vents in the floor and am keeping the door to the basement open which is helping but not getting quite enough heat upstairs.  I think i'm going to cut 1-2 more vents but I do find what helps is putting a box fan at ground level at the top of the stairs blowing INTO the stairwell.... 

The best advice that was given to me here (and is very true):  The key isn't moving the warm air... it's moving the colder, more dense air.  If you move the cold air down, the hot air naturally moves to fill the void.  

So i'd say cut some vents... keep the stairwell open.   My next step is to get a couple of register fans for the vents but if i do, i'll set up 1 or 2 of them to blow air down INTO the basement, thus forcing the warmer air up out the other vents.  

The whole hot air rising doesn't seem to apply for me... probably b/c it's a log cabin house and very "tight" (not a lot of drafts/air movement).  

Good luck!


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## SmokeyTheBear (Nov 9, 2010)

The hot air can only go up if there is cold air going down.   Otherwise the air molecule to air molecule heat transfer via conduction takes forever, as they can be like ships crossing in the night.

The cold air falls down over the stairs and allows the hot air to rise, that rise takes place somewhere in front of the stove.
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
WSxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxDxxW  
WxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxWxxW
WxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxWxxW
WxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxWxxH
WxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxWxxH
WxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxWxxH
WxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxWxxH
WxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxWxxH
WxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxWUpper floor landing
WxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxCW
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

The S is the stove the D is the doorway, to the right of the wall on the right is the stairwell, The H is the half wall the stairwell is two stories high almost at the door way and is one story high at the Upper floor landing.

I do not use any fans to move the air except for the convection blower on the stove, which pulls the cold air in at 12 inches above floor level and pushes the hot air out into the basement room 28 inches above floor level this drives the convection loop.  The hot air is pushed away from the stove towards C  the far corner as it goes in that direction it also rises, eventually the warm air hits the ceiling and some of it spills out the doorway D and from there up the stairwell.  When the heated air cools it is displaced by the newly arriving warm air by dropping down the walls and flowing along the floor to the stairwell where it falls down the stairs and back into the room with the stove.

Hopefully the forum software won't mangle this too much.

ETA:The room above the stove room aka my Den and Office is the master suite currently the temperature in my Den is 73.8 and in the master suite it is 68.2 outside is about 40 and the stove is on 1 the great room is at 71.1.


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## carlg (Nov 9, 2010)

Interesting.
Thanks for sharing this information.

It seems like the layout of your home makes this work (and the positioning of your stove).

I'm not sure I can describe my floor plan, but I'll give it a shot.

My basement (where I would like to place the stove) is smaller than my main floor.
100% of my living room is over the basement and about 30% of the kitchen is over the basement.  The remaining 70% of kitchen is over a crawl space and not over the basement.  The stairs from the basement to the main floor are in the kitchen and they point to the rear of the house (not the living room).  So my thoughts are any heat that rises into the kitchen is going to get stuck in the rear of the house.  I guess if I can find a way to make the warm air do a U-turn when coming up the stairs and into the living room, this would be ideal.  That's why we thought maybe just putting a few vents in may work.

Carl


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## SmokeyTheBear (Nov 9, 2010)

You are welcome to the information.

Your layout is a lot different than mine, I would likely have to use an additional fan to get a good convection loop going in your house.  Getting things like this to work takes a bit of experimentation.

But a couple of words of advice, the first you have already heard try moving the cold air towards the stove.   The second is to install an OAK on your stove.  The OAK will stop combustion air from being sucked out of the house.    When you first start the stove that combustion air will be cold air but as the place warms up that air will be air you spent money on heating up, and the air that replaces it will come from outside through any and all cracks in your house's shell.

Try everything but cutting holes first, that is a drastic method of doing the job and if it doesn't work you'll be a bit hot under the collar.

ETA: When we bought this place such heating was one of the criteria we used,  there were three houses that we looked at that could have been heated from the basement without modifications.  One of the others we made an offer on that resulted in a counter offer, the money was fine, but it turned out to be an undisclosed short sale so it had to go through a couple of lenders in order to be transfered.  We declined the counter and made an offer on this house, we had the keys to this house seven days later and actually closed a month after that.


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## lordgrinz (Nov 9, 2010)

That moving the cold air to the room with the stove is important! I was having trouble with my house layout, the hallway leading to the upstairs was not allowing heat from the bottom floor to go up there. Originally I put a floor fan on to blow the heat into the hallway, that didn't work, turned it around and blew the cold air out of the hallway and then heat started traveling upstairs.


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## bosco (Nov 9, 2010)

I have a similar situation to you smokey except I only have the stairwell and no half wall.  We currently leave our basement door open.  The pellet stove heats the house well when it is say 45 and up, but we need to supplement with oil when it is colder.  I was also thinking about cutting a hole or two for venting over the warmest area of our basement.  Would this work since we do leave the basement door open (allowing the cold air to travel downward)?  We always thought leaving the door open was allowing heat to come up, but after reading this forum it seems that isn't the case and any benefit we are seeing upstairs is most likely due to sending the cold air down the stairs.


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## lordgrinz (Nov 9, 2010)

tm22 said:
			
		

> I have a similar situation to you smokey except I only have the stairwell and no half wall.  We currently leave our basement door open.  The pellet stove heats the house well when it is say 45 and up, but we need to supplement with oil when it is colder.  I was also thinking about cutting a hole or two for venting over the warmest area of our basement.  Would this work since we do leave the basement door open (allowing the cold air to travel downward)?  We always thought leaving the door open was allowing heat to come up, but after reading this forum it seems that isn't the case and any benefit we are seeing upstairs is most likely due to sending the cold air down the stairs.



Try putting a fan at the top the stairs blowing cold air down into the basement, I am betting it will quickly heat the upstairs. My next step is to figure out a way to get a natural draft going throughout the house without having fans in walkways.


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## SmokeyTheBear (Nov 9, 2010)

tm22.

Try a fan in the doorway (these can easily become a safety issue) on the floor.

By sending cold air down you are allowing the warm air to come up.   Heated air can only rise if the cold air sinks and it is a lot easier to get the cold air sunk than playing with the hot air.  That is why hot air systems have a cold air return.

If you want to play with the hot air side you might want to look into cutting some vents in the wall of your stair well about 4 feet above the upper level flooring,   This would emulate a half wall to a degree.

But before cutting holes try the fan thing down low and towards the stove area.

I originally played with the ceiling fans the first year I had the stove and couldn't really see any benefit and stopped using them. 


Everyone should understand that the heating load of every house is different and you have to at least meat that requirement in order to heat the place, if you don't then the stove will handle only so much of the load.


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## bosco (Nov 9, 2010)

Thanks for the tips!  I will let you know how it works out.


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## Lousyweather (Nov 9, 2010)

only issue COULD be, the vent holes can also act as a chimney if a fire were to form, causing the fire to go from floor to floor quickly. Its why, in the great and regulated state of Massachusetts, code officials wont let you dow what you propose anymore.


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## SmokeyTheBear (Nov 9, 2010)

Lousyweather said:
			
		

> only issue COULD be, the vent holes can also act as a chimney if a fire were to form, causing the fire to go from floor to floor quickly. Its why, in the great and regulated state of Massachusetts, code officials wont let you dow what you propose anymore.



They must have real problems about leaving doors open then.

But h**l leave it to Massachusetts where everything is likely illegal except cutting off drivers.


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## Taperbill (Nov 9, 2010)

My insurance guy commented on my heat openings on the 1st floor allowing heat to rise to the upstairs.
Something about fire code..I derailed him by showing the opening with the  steel cover with adjustable slots  removed..I showed him
 The  sheet rocked//Firetaped and painted  opening so I would meet any 1 hour fire rating for escape ability.

It seems moot when my stairwell remains open leading to upstairs and allows for a cold air/balance return for the stove.

If cutting into your main floor for heat I would suggest doing the same to baffle the inspectors...along with having the right # of working smoke detectors.
Just frame the opening with 5/8  Sheetrock and firecaulk the angles. 
The cover you use will cover up the work..
Use adjusting covers as you can experiment with heat flow.
It will be a different manner with balancing cool air return..I leave that to the experts.

Drywall is my thing  .


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## pete324rocket (Nov 9, 2010)

Just an additional note that may help someone when planning....the cold air that you force to return should be the coldest possible air in the house for it will move the easiest,even if that route is farther.


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## Taperbill (Nov 10, 2010)

I was thinking on this some..

Could the original  poster just turn on his forced air furnace fan /with the heat off and circulate 
the warm air throughout the house ..if they have forced air.
I use this in extreme cold to get some warm air into my colder basement. -20 and below.

My furnace guy said the fans are made to run a long time with low electrical cost.
and you get to filter the air.


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## musclecar joe (Nov 10, 2010)

cut a hole in the upstairs floor cover hole with grate.

in the dropped ceiling below cut a hole in the tile and use grate to cover hole.

connect in between with duct and put a simple duct booster fan you can by at Lowes or Home Depot.

hook up an electrical control to either a) run all the time or B) a variable switch to control the speed of the duct fan. (more heat turn it up) 

Works great.  spent a total of $110 and did it at my camp. 

Make sure however you leave the door in the stairway open to let cold air fall. actually the duct fan will help suck air down the stairs.


*Tjernlund DB2 Duct Booster for Rectangular Ducts $85

For boosting air flow in heating or air conditioning ducts, or for powered ambient air intake or exhaust. Easy installation in both round and rectangular ducts. Can be installed in a section of metal duct and spliced into a section of flex duct.
Installs in round metal ducts from 5" - 8" diameter or rectangular ducts as shallow as 3 1/4". Maximum ambient room temp. 100 degrees F.  Includes mounting template.  Duct opening approx 7 1/8" X 4".  Fan can be switched with furnace / AC blower using convenient air proving switch.  

Its size and design limits its use to branch ducts serving individual rooms, not the main supply or "truck line" duct. The DUCT BOOSTER® can be mounted on round or flat ducts. It is frequently installed on a warm air duct of a gravity warm air furnace to provide heating for a basement area but will work in many applications.*


musclecar joe


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## worfandpizza (Nov 11, 2010)

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

My insert is in the living room fireplace and my problem has been getting the heat to go into the dining room and kitchen. After reading this discussion, I shut off the fans trying to blow the warm air out of the living room and put a box fan in the dining room, near the door to the kitchen and blowing into the living room. What a difference it made. I could walk from the living room thru the dining room and into the kitchen and not feel any distinct drop in temperature.

There are three bedrooms that branch off a short hallway at the opposite side of the living room. The stove is actually pointing in this direction. For various reasons, I have to keep the doors to the bedrooms closed and consequently no heat gets in there. Do you think it would work to cut openings near the top and bottom of the doors and put fans blowing out the lower opening?


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## SmokeyTheBear (Nov 11, 2010)

Taperbill said:
			
		

> I was thinking on this some..
> 
> Could the original  poster just turn on his forced air furnace fan /with the heat off and circulate
> the warm air throughout the house ..if they have forced air.
> ...



Using a forced air system in CAC mode is one way to move the air in a house, the only problem is that the house needs such a system to start out with and that the system must also have been installed in the basement as well.   That isn't always the case as a lot of "family" rooms are afterthoughts and the OP didn't state what heating system they had to start with.


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