# help with moving stove heat around the house



## ugotit22 (Nov 10, 2015)

Hey everyone
Figured if ask here since someone must have had this problem. So my pellet stove is on the far left side of my house in the living room,while my bedrooms are on the far right side. The living room is a 21x15 that gets up to 90 degrees when my stove is cooking,meanwhile my other end off the house is 65. If you can follow my lay out. It goes living room then I to the kitchen quick right into a dining room, the a long hallway into the bedrooms. Between my living room and dining room is the stairwell going I to the basement.
My idea is to cut a 12 inch by 12 inch vent on the the living room.side out duct work through the stairwell and come out the other side of the dining room with the vent venting into the hall way.
My questions are,
Will this work?
If so does anyone have recommendations for a fan to help move the air through the duct and into the hallway


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## unbidden (Nov 10, 2015)

Don't get to crazy with cutting vents and installing fans. Many here will tell you the best option is to put a small fan in the doorway of the cold room and blow the cold air towards the stove.


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## DrewBoogie (Nov 10, 2015)

Yeah, what he said.  Put it on the floor blowing cold air in, it will help the warm air up high flow out of the doorway.


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## Snowy Rivers (Nov 10, 2015)

Fans help

Can you run the air handler of your furnace to move the air ??

We tried all the little twists and turns here at the ranch, and after many years of fooling around with having one room SIZZLING HOT and the rest of the house COLD we tore out the big @$%^ stove in the family room and installed one with more variability on heat output.

Then we installed a small stove in the far reaches of the opposite end of the house.

Actually we have 3 pellet stoves in the 2400 sqft ranch style layout.

It works well with no cold spots.

If the heat will not naturally move the cold air around then it gets tough to move it.

As mentioned, try a fan out where its cold and see if you can move the cold air to the stove.

As mentioned, we tried that, and ended up with a cold breezy wind blowing all the time.

Good luck

Snowy


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## Metal (Nov 10, 2015)

I leave the fan on my air handler on which helps a bit and use the blow the cold air towards the stove trick.  I bought a small Vornado brand fan and put it at the far end of the hall (by the bedrooms) blowing air along the floor towards the stove and it does a very good job.


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## Ashful (Nov 10, 2015)

Air handler on your furnace / heat pump is a good solution, only if said air handler and ductwork are located within the heated envelope of your home.  If they're in a cold basement or attic, then your heat losses will typically be too high to make this an effective solution.

The most oft-cited solution is a fan on the floor in the coldest corner of the house, pointed toward the stove.  This may be a fan on the floor at the end of the hall accessing the bedrooms, pointed down the length of the hall toward the living room.  It's typically easier to move cool air along the floor toward the stove, allowing it to displace the warm air in the living room back at higher strata, than to directly move warm air along ceilings and under door transoms.


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## ugotit22 (Nov 10, 2015)

Hoping pics will give a better idea of what I'm thinking.
I have tried fans but the problem is it only blows into the kitchen. Really doesn't help much in the way of the hall or bedrooms.
My idea is to make a duct where the living room wall goes through the stairwell and comes out right where that picture of the mirror is which is pointing directly down the hallway.


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## Aquion (Nov 10, 2015)

I have a similar set up. My stove in on one end of the house and the bedrooms are on the opposite end. One bedroom in  particular always stayed cold despite the stove. I run the ceiling fan in that room backwards on the lowest speed, and that helps a lot.


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## St_Earl (Nov 10, 2015)

i wish i didn't need fans at all, but i absolutely do. i have a _very _problematic back bedroom.
i use two vornadoes up high to shoot the warm air back there.
but only after i have a small (9 inch) floor fan outside the stove room blowing in, to get warm air *billowing* out of the stove room, and the second 9 incher outside the back bedroom blowing in line to the first.
this gets a surprising flow of displaced warm air flowing out of the stove room and sets up the convection loop.
the vornados shoot one to the other up high, one up in the stove room doorway, and one right under the kitchen/dining room arch, which then shoots under the two other pesky arches in the short hallway bottleneck outside the back bedroom.

i think our layout is about as bad as it gets for airflow.
but the thing that makes even the vornadoes work (in really cold times when they are needed) are those little floor fans displacing great volumes of warm stove room air that you can feel flowing out under the stover room door's lintel.

i would advise experimenting and finding exactly what works best, and then cutting holes if that is what you really prefer for aesthetics.
at least then you can be reasonably sure you are doing the right thing.

and even then, your duct should have a fan blowing *into *the stove room first.
that will get much more warm air moving. then perhaps a fan up high 'helping" the already moving warm air.
they make "corner" fans for doorways, but i like my small vornados because the blow a focused column and i can shoot one directly to the next and get the air finally into the back bedroom. i have hung one in the corner of the stove room doorway and then another under the kitchen/dining room arch. it is a little funky, but it suits my style just fine. it works tremendously well.
the corner fans may look better.
in either case, the doorway is where that river of warm air will be flowing, and in my opinion, the only logical place to have a fan shooting it back to the cold regions of the house.

it took me a while to get my system down. i'd much prefer not to need fans at all, but it sounds like we are in similar situations in that regard.


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## joed2323 (Nov 10, 2015)

Totally agree with the guys here.

If you can spend some money on fans go for it first.

You can always cut holes later...

I have a 2200 Sq ft house. My pellet stove is smack dead center of a open style house. I have 3 bedrooms on the far end and my master bed on the other end. 

All I have is a pelpro pp130

It cooks us out of the house in western North dakota 

What I do is I rely on my furnace blower. It's amazing what it can do if you can turn it on for say 15-30 mins shut it off and kick it back on. Some guys have theirs on a automatic type timer

I also do use small turbo fans like others stated.

I'd advice against cutting holes first


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## Ashful (Nov 10, 2015)

I had a problem in that my stove was also at one end of a very long house.  So, I stuck a second stove at the other end of the house!  [emoji12]


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## Deromax (Nov 11, 2015)

The larger issue is thinking that a space heater will replace a central system.  Puting a stove in a room with no other source of heat elsewhere is basically bringing you to the comfort level of 100 years ago.

Sorry to be of no help, but this is the sad reality.


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## St_Earl (Nov 11, 2015)

Deromax said:


> ...sad reality.


i heat my entire house and basement with a single pellet stove alone. and to a much more comfortable state than the old forced air oil burner.
now that i have my fans dialed in, i can manage the back bedroom heat up or down to the desired temp in a matter of minutes.

*not saying everyone can do this. some folks use a second stove.


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## Harvey Schneider (Nov 11, 2015)

Here is what works for me. I have a two story colonial salt box.
I have a ceiling fan in the room with the pellet stove (insert). I keep the fan on high speed, blowing down all through the heating season. This is enough to spread the heat during all but the coldest weather. I use a floor standing blower moving air towards the stove as an assist.
The ceiling fan is virtually silent, but the floor fan speed is adjusted to tolerable noise level depending on what I am doing.
This works acceptably for heating the first floor. 
The second floor bedrooms are supplimented by oil baseboard hydronics morning and evening. There is no reason for supplimental heat during the day or during the night.
I don't expect the pellet stove to do everything, but it does the majority of the heating in my house.


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## Snowy Rivers (Nov 11, 2015)

100 year old technology is still every bit as good as it was then.

Truth is that space heaters  (pellet stove, wood stove, coal stove) etc  will only heat so much area.

One area fries while another freezes.

With our two prime heat sources at opposite ends of the house and looking at each other the air flows pretty well and the place stays comfy.

My office is in the only out of the way corner, and I heat it with my 50 inch screen that serves as my computer monitor.

During the cold weather I leave the puter and screen on to keep the room warm.

Not exactly an orthodox way to heat a room, but the area is warm in the morning when I stumble in at 0 dark 30 with my first cuppa coffee. 


Adding a second (and likely small) stove to your cold end is a better choice than butchering holes, installing fans and beating your head on the wall.

Good luck

Snowy


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## St_Earl (Nov 11, 2015)

^we actually don't have the floor space for another stove without really cramping our space.
the fans i have work splendidly.

there is no one best solution for all homes.
the heat in our house is balanced just fine.
i heat the 925 sq. feet upstairs to about 75 in the winter and keep the 925 sq. foot basement at 50 to 55F even in deepest winter, and do it with one stove.

that being said, a two stove solution will be the best in other situations.
if i had a bigger house or two levels i wanted at living temps, that might be something i'd decided was best.


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## JRA (Nov 11, 2015)

I use a mounted corner fan in my doorway to the downstairs bedrooms to move some warm air down there. It does ok. I am fortunate my house is a multilevel and my stove is situated in the fireplace right in the middle of my living room. It's a direct shot to my upstairs where my other two bedrooms are. This is where the wife and I sleep and the whole upstairs stays around 70 even on the coldest days. The lower level is chilly but Noone is dwelling down there at the moment. When we have kids I may have to add a second zone for my oil base board heat or get a second stove for the basement to heat those two lower level bedrooms. For now the setup is perfect as I said Noone is dwelling on the lower level.


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## Ashful (Nov 11, 2015)

Deromax said:


> The larger issue is thinking that a space heater will replace a central system.  Puting a stove in a room with no other source of heat elsewhere is basically bringing you to the comfort level of 100 years ago.
> 
> Sorry to be of no help, but this is the sad reality.


Not sure if this is just uneducated assumption, or a deliberate attempt at starting an argument, but it does fly in the face of the majority experience on this forum.  Many here are heating their entire house quite comfortably and evenly with a single centrally located stove.  It really is surprising how well a stove can heat the far reaches of a moderately sized house, when kept going 24/7.

Moreover, your assumptions about how things were heated in the past are completely incorrect.  100 years ago, folks had central coil furnaces and boilers.  If you go back farther, you do get to a time when the woodstove was the primary heat source, but there was not one in a room heating a whole house.  My house had two on each floor, all installed sometime before 1805, which was a very common arrangement in our part of the country.

The primary differences in 'then' versus 'now' are stove efficiency, and insulated walls and windows.


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## bogieb (Nov 12, 2015)

Deromax said:


> The larger issue is thinking that a space heater will replace a central system.  Puting a stove in a room with no other source of heat elsewhere is basically bringing you to the comfort level of 100 years ago.
> 
> Sorry to be of no help, but this is the sad reality.



I think that actually the issue is to realize that we almost think that our central heating systems work at distributing heat by magic. They too are just space heaters until you add fans/blowers/ducts (or water distribution systems in the case of FHW). We just don't think of central heating systems in that way because most of the extra stuff was planned for at install (during the building of the house) and is hidden, or at least tucked up against walls and out of the way. We don't have to think about it at all.

So, when we put in a pellet stove, we expect the heat to magically distribute thru the house. Some houses, it does work great in, others not so much. If it doesn't work well by itself we have to develop and install some sort of air distribution system that is not hidden (except those lucky few that can get their FHA fans to help out). Then, we want minimal interference in what is already the established layout of the house, minimal inconvenience, minimal extras, and minimal noise. I'm not saying this is wrong or bad, but that is reality of our wishes. We also want the first try at getting the system set up to work.

So, does that help the OP? Nope, just rambling on with some of my profound coffee-induced, sugar-detoxing "wisdom"


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## NYBurner (Nov 12, 2015)

ugotit22 said:


> Hey everyone
> Figured if ask here since someone must have had this problem. So my pellet stove is on the far left side of my house in the living room,while my bedrooms are on the far right side. The living room is a 21x15 that gets up to 90 degrees when my stove is cooking,meanwhile my other end off the house is 65. If you can follow my lay out. It goes living room then I to the kitchen quick right into a dining room, the a long hallway into the bedrooms. Between my living room and dining room is the stairwell going I to the basement.
> My idea is to cut a 12 inch by 12 inch vent on the the living room.side out duct work through the stairwell and come out the other side of the dining room with the vent venting into the hall way.
> My questions are,
> ...



Your idea will work but you will need a blower to push the cold air into the stove room.  By using a blower you will also be able to make a smaller hole than 12" and probably cover it up with a nice grate.  I just built a setup running an 8" cold air return and a 710CFM fan, works perfect.  Best option is to duct via the basement (since you have a ranch) from the furthest point of the house.  This will allow the house to circulate the air and reduce pressure zones which are currently causing your problem.


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## maple1 (Nov 12, 2015)

Ashful said:


> Not sure if this is just uneducated assumption, or a deliberate attempt at starting an argument, but it does fly in the face of the majority experience on this forum.  Many here are heating their entire house quite comfortably and evenly with a single centrally located stove.  It really is surprising how well a stove can heat the far reaches of a moderately sized house, when kept going 24/7.
> 
> Moreover, your assumptions about how things were heated in the past are completely incorrect.  100 years ago, folks had central coil furnaces and boilers.  If you go back farther, you do get to a time when the woodstove was the primary heat source, but there was not one in a room heating a whole house.  My house had two on each floor, all installed sometime before 1805, which was a very common arrangement in our part of the country.
> 
> The primary differences in 'then' versus 'now' are stove efficiency, and insulated walls and windows.


 
There are also always a ton of threads in the stove forums about how to distribute the heat around the house. This one being case in point. So I would not say it was an uneducated assumption at all.

People did use space heaters in the way back days - fireplaces in every room, and a stove in the kitchen or mutliples in other rooms. And also lived with the pee pot freezing up overnight and sleeping under 100 pounds of blankets.

People do what they want to do, and are able to do - which is fine. But there are limitations to heating a whole house with a space heater, which some don't fully realize until they are trying to do it. So I don't think raising that point and getting someone to re-evaluate their heating decisions taking that into account is a bad thing - they might have had an option that was better for them available that they didn't consider up front, or may not have realized all the issues up front with trying to heat the house the way they want with what they are thinking of buying. Some can make it work with multiple stoves & fans - that's good. But some just aren't up for that or prepared for it - good to know before buying.


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## St_Earl (Nov 12, 2015)

^or with single stoves


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## Snowy Rivers (Nov 12, 2015)

Years ago, we owned a small house in town and this is where we got acquainted with the pellet stove and the nut shell thing,

The house had a fair sized living room, a twisted hallway and a fairly long kitchen dining room.

There were doorways into each room (As opposed to the totally open floor plan we have now.

The stove (then a wood stove) was located in an alcove in the living room.

The bed rooms (3) were all located at the back of the house (down the twisted hallway.

IF  ALL the doors were left open, once the stove was going good the cold air would flow across the floor from the rooms away from the stove and to the heated living room and the warm air would penetrate the entire house without the living room being overly hot.

We had a heat study done at one time by one of those "Energy efficiency" outfits and they told me that we could not heat our house with the one little stove (By that time a pellet stove)

Hmmmm
It's the dead of winter and the house is cozy, and this clown is telling me IT WON'T WORK 

He insisted that my gas furnace was helping.

I took the dude to the garage and showed him the SHUT OFF GAS VALVE, and the pipe the fed the furnace THAT WAS REMOVED

OK 
The study ended at that point with the guy telling me that what we were doing will not work. ???????????????????????? 

We ran a little Earth stove pellet stove on nut shells and heated the1250 sq ft home for the entire winter season at a cost of $50

There are many strange anomalies when it comes to air flow.

In that house the master bath door had to be open or the circulation would not work. Just having the bedroom door would not do it.

The tiny little half bath had to be open or no go ?????????????

Must have had something to do with the vent in the ceiling ???????????


Strange things.

As mentioned, using the air handler may or may not work, as it depends on how far and where the air has to flow to reach the rest of the house.

The cooling effect of the long haul through the system tends to kill any benefit of moving the air.

Here at the ranch I have tried using the air handler, and it generally just makes the place BREEZY and does not help it warm easier.


Bottom line.

If you have something that works, do it, if it's cheap, do it more 

There is no one solution.

Personally, if I were building a new home today, I would install a heat pump system that could handle the AC requirements and keep the inspectors out of my face, then install several pellet stoves that were strategically located to allow a little stove for the "Shoulder season" and a larger stove to do the heavy lifting and a third to act as a backup or for times that it is B A C outside.

On a new build some air circulation "ports" could be strategically located to allow air to flow in and about without them being real obvious or obnoxious looking.

Now all this said, most folks don't engineer their house around pellet stoves, but if it's done with some forethought, heating can be easy.

Just sayin

Snowy


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## Pelleting In NJ (Nov 12, 2015)

I have the large size Vornado fan sitting on top of my Ecoteck/Ravelli stove, blowing the warmer air into the rest of the open-floorplan downstairs of my house. I installed a thermo-switch (snap-disk) inside my stove, near the firebox, to automatically turn the Vornado fan on and off.


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