# How to circulate heat into other rooms,



## guest5234 (Sep 10, 2008)

I have my stove in the main living area and would like to push some heat into another room, if I open the door and place a fan blowing the warm air into that room will it be doing any good ?


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## Todd (Sep 10, 2008)

Better to blow the denser lower level cold air out into the stove room and the upper level warm air will flow in to replace it.


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## karl (Sep 10, 2008)

Column fans work great, and they don't get in the way.  Just blow cold air towards the stove room.  Right about now is when Walmart puts them on clearance.  I got mine for 20 bucks each.  I took the little stand off of the bottom so they would sit closer to the floor.  Three of these and my house is comfortable everywhere, and I have a ranch.

This picture isn't the exact one I bought, but close to it.


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## Valhalla (Sep 10, 2008)

karl said:
			
		

> Column fans work great, and they don't get in the way.  Just blow cold air towards the stove room.  Right about now is when Walmart puts them on clearance.  I got mine for 20 bucks each.  I took the little stand off of the bottom so they would sit closer to the floor.  Three of these and my house is comfortable everywhere, and I have a ranch.
> 
> This picture isn't the exact one I bought, but close to it.



Great idea in the column fans. Thanks!


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## cd64133 (Sep 10, 2008)

When researching our stove purchase one dealer recommended using the the blower on your furnace set to 'FAN'  to circulate the room air.  Basically, the return in the room will grab all the warm air and distribute it.  I know we did this when we were kids, but I never saw the logic all that well.

We might get some of the warm air to the furnace through the return but all of the other rooms that are colder will be sending their cold air to the furnace via their returns.  So isn't that warm air just being converted to cooler air?   

Someone let me know if running the furnace fan to circulate the warm air makes a difference in your house.


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## guest5234 (Sep 10, 2008)

Todd said:
			
		

> Better to blow the denser lower level cold air out into the stove room and the upper level warm air will flow in to replace it.





sO YOU ACTUALLY POSITION THE FAN IN THE COLD ROOM DOORWAY AND BLOW THE COLD AIR INTO THE STOVE ROOM.


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## n6crv (Sep 10, 2008)

Yes!


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## Henz (Sep 10, 2008)

I like the tower fan idea. i have been using a standard osscilating fan on a stool. why would you want it on theground? I might pick one of those tower fans up


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## bluefrier (Sep 10, 2008)

cd64133 said:
			
		

> Someone let me know if running the furnace fan to circulate the warm air makes a difference in your house.



CD, The only difference it made in my house was to make the house feel colder.  Some swear that it works but I think that
would be the least effective method of spreading the heat.  Like the majority posters, I will be trying the "pushing cold air" method.


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## fossil (Sep 10, 2008)

cd64133 said:
			
		

> When researching our stove purchase one dealer recommended using the the blower on your furnace set to 'FAN'  to circulate the room air.  Basically, the return in the room will grab all the warm air and distribute it.  I know we did this when we were kids, but I never saw the logic all that well.
> 
> We might get some of the warm air to the furnace through the return but all of the other rooms that are colder will be sending their cold air to the furnace via their returns.  So isn't that warm air just being converted to cooler air?
> 
> Someone let me know if running the furnace fan to circulate the warm air makes a difference in your house.



Depends on how your house is built.  Typically, the ducting for a central heating and/or cooling unit runs either through an attic or a crawl space...neither of which is heated or insulated.  In the dead of winter, the temperature in either of those spaces is not much above ambient outside temp.  In spite of the fact that the ducting is insulated, as you move warm air from inside the living space out into that ductwork, it will lose a good deal of heat during its journey back into the living space.  Clever throttling of registers might help, if that option's available.  A few folks have good experience circulating air with a central fan, but I think the majority do not.  Rick


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## karl (Sep 10, 2008)

Adirondackwoodburner said:
			
		

> I like the tower fan idea. i have been using a standard osscilating fan on a stool. why would you want it on theground? I might pick one of those tower fans up



Cold air is more dense and therefore easier to push.  In nature airflows from high pressure to low pressure.  

As for do they work?  Yes, I have a few of those wireless thermometers around the house.  They record the highest and the lowest temperature.  When I go to bed I turn the fans off because they keep me awake.  When I get up in the morning I look at the thermometer and I can see a temperature spike in the stove room after I've gone to bed.  I don't see this spike on the other thermometers.

The cold air is on the floor and the warm air is higher up.  We want to move the cold air towards the stove room, thus we want the fan down low.  Then the warm air flows over top of it and through out the house.

You'll have to experiment with placement of the fans.  I have one in the hallway furtherest away from the stove room.  Then I have one in the hallway at the entry way to the stove room.  That takes care of that end of the house. Then I have one in the family room blowing towards the hallway.  I also have one in the dining room that blows into the stove room through another doorway.  I found that I really didn't need that one, so I rarely turn it on.

They work and they're much quieter than a propellor fan, plus they don't get in the way.


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## Elfin (Sep 10, 2008)

cd, we have good experience with using the furnace fan to circulate heat throughout the house.  However, we only have one return, and it's located within 30 feet from the stove so it is able to pick up very warm air. I guess our house is set up quite well for this purpose, but I can understand how others wouldn't be.


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## EddyKilowatt (Sep 10, 2008)

I don't worry to much about moving warm air vs cold air.  But, I do make sure the fan is pointed *out* of the room I am in.  Which is to say, if I'm in the room with the stove, I put the fan high and blow warm air down the hall.  If I'm down the hall, I put the fan low and blow warm air toward the stove.

Reason?  Wind chill... seriously.  When you're trying to stay warm, any moving air takes heat away from your skin and makes you feel cold.  I learned this in a place with a ceiling fan and a cathedral ceiling.  Even though the thermometer agreed that it was a couple degrees warmer in my easy chair with the fan on... it sure didn't feel like it.  The faint, almost un-noticeable breeze from the fan's circulation was dropping the apparent temperature and un-doing the benefit of the fan.

I learned then to turn the fan on whenever I left the room, and turn it off whenever I settled down to read.

Eddy


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## scotsman (Sep 10, 2008)

There are "duct fans". We had a stove in the fireplace and the ceiling slanted up to about 15' on the opposite wall. This wall divided the house into two with all the bedrooms in the remote part. There were two vents of the central air system toward the top of the high wall where the heat pooled. I put the vent in, plugged them in, turned 'em on and did it work great. That also moved the cold air back into the room where the stove was. Could not have asked for a better result, especially in a house built in the early 1970s.

If you can find these things, they do great. When we moved, I took them and have them to this day. IF you have a central air duct system, I don't think you can do better. AND you don't have to remove them when A/C weather comes. Just leave them in place.


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## relax (Sep 13, 2008)

I also have a ranch and a wall  splitting the house in half..heritage in south end of house..How about putting a vent in the top of the splitting wall..and directly below a vent on the bottom of the wall on the other side of the wall with a fan blowing the air down the inside of the wall into bedroom...I think i could make the vents look good just dont know if id get much heat to flow ...ZZZim


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## begreen (Sep 13, 2008)

EddyKilowatt said:
			
		

> I don't worry to much about moving warm air vs cold air.  But, I do make sure the fan is pointed *out* of the room I am in.  Which is to say, if I'm in the room with the stove, I put the fan high and blow warm air down the hall.  If I'm down the hall, I put the fan low and blow warm air toward the stove.
> 
> Reason?  Wind chill... seriously.  When you're trying to stay warm, any moving air takes heat away from your skin and makes you feel cold.  I learned this in a place with a ceiling fan and a cathedral ceiling.  Even though the thermometer agreed that it was a couple degrees warmer in my easy chair with the fan on... it sure didn't feel like it.  The faint, almost un-noticeable breeze from the fan's circulation was dropping the apparent temperature and un-doing the benefit of the fan.
> 
> ...



Good reason to have the ceiling fan reversed, blowing upward during the stove heating seasons.


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