# Closing off the stairs to 2nd floor?



## gyrfalcon (Dec 7, 2008)

Do you lose more heat going up an open stairway from the stove room, or is the problem primarily the cold air coming down?

My old house has the doorway to the stairs to the 2nd floor smack in the middle of the interior wall of the front room that goes across the entire front of the house, and I want to try closing it off and see how that affects heat on both floors.  There's no actual door on it now, though there clearly used to be, so I'm thinking of hanging one of the big tough movers' blankets left behind by my movers a few years ago.  The doorway is 7 feet top to bottom, and the blanket won't cover the whole thing but will leave about a one-foot gap top or bottom.

Before I struggle to put this thing up, does it make more sense to leave the uncovered gap at the top to minimize cold air coming down, or at the bottom to minimize warm air going upstairs?

It's a small house, and I keep the two small spare bedrooms closed in winter, so there's a single steep flight of stairs straight up, then a small hallway that immediately doubles back towards the front of the house, and my bedroom is off the far end of that.  So I don't think the warm air that comes up the stairway reaches my bedroom  much, so all I'm heating right now is the stairs and part of the hallway.  My 2nd floor is unheated in any case, and my bedroom, which is directly over the stove, is actually less cold with the woodstove than it was using the boiler, so some heat is certainly coming up through the ceiling.

Anyway, I'm thinking it makes little sense to be wasting heat on the stairway and having that cold draft coming right at the stove.

Any thoughts?


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## LLigetfa (Dec 7, 2008)

Is the doorway at the top or base of the stairs?  Do you have a mattress you could use to block it off for a test?


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## gyrfalcon (Dec 7, 2008)

LLigetfa said:
			
		

> Is the doorway at the top or base of the stairs?  Do you have a mattress you could use to block it off for a test?



Good quesion I didn't think of.  Yes, doorway is at the base, just coming up to the floor at 2nd, so wide open there.

A mattress?  Are you kidding?  This would be easier than nailing up a blanket how?


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## LLigetfa (Dec 7, 2008)

A mattress should stand on its own or maybe propped up with a chair.  Nothing to nail and it would close off the entire entrance better simulating a door.  If the blanket doesn't cover the entire door it isn't a very good test.  It also wouldn't seal well just hanging it up.


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## gyrfalcon (Dec 7, 2008)

LLigetfa said:
			
		

> A mattress should stand on its own or maybe propped up with a chair.  Nothing to nail and it would close off the entire entrance better simulating a door.  If the blanket doesn't cover the entire door it isn't a very good test.  It also wouldn't seal well just hanging it up.



I see what you're getting at.  Thanks.  But wrestling a mattress down to the doorway and then wrestling it out of the way and back every time I need to go upstairs just isn't something I'm capable of doing by myself.  Also, the steps start immediately at the door opening, one step up from the floor, so I'd need an eight-foot mattress to cover the whole thing. 

And actually, I don't really think I need to seal the doorway, just block off most of the heat exchange.  (FYI, people in the less affluent parts of Europe to this day use blankets over doorways to conserve heat, so it's not quite as silly an idea as it may sound.)

I'm still curious about a bottom gap versus top gap.  Any thoughts on that?  If my experiment really makes a difference, I can nail a piece of plywood or something over the top part of the doorway so the blanket would cover the whole opening, but obviously, I don't want to do that until I've got a better sense of whether it's worth doing at all.


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## bjkjoseph (Dec 7, 2008)

i just shut all the bedroom doors up stairs


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## begreen (Dec 7, 2008)

I'd just use some 4 mil plastic for a test. You can get a 10' x 25' roll for about 8 bucks. Use some thumbtacks to hold it up or staples if you have a staple gun. Cut it long and weight the bottom with a 2x4 or a split of wood.


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## Cearbhaill (Dec 7, 2008)

I did much the same thing (but involving A/C) with a very large, heavy tarp. The grommets made it easy to hang and I tightened up the edges with velcro.


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## fishinpa (Dec 7, 2008)

I have an open stairway about 20ft from my stove and I need the warm air NOT to go straight up into my kitchen. I had two sides of the stairwell to cover because the third is an interior block wall.

I chose to 'try' a moving blanket and have been very pleased with it. I hung it from the ceiling to about 20" from the floor, cutting the corner open so we can pass right through it. This way I 'think' I'm getting the best of both worlds: I'm stopping the warm air from running right up the stairs and allowing space for the cold air to come down. I hope this helped.


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## Rich L (Dec 7, 2008)

gyrfalcon said:
			
		

> Do you lose more heat going up an open stairway from the stove room, or is the problem primarily the cold air coming down?
> 
> My old house has the doorway to the stairs to the 2nd floor smack in the middle of the interior wall of the front room that goes across the entire front of the house, and I want to try closing it off and see how that affects heat on both floors.  There's no actual door on it now, though there clearly used to be, so I'm thinking of hanging one of the big tough movers' blankets left behind by my movers a few years ago.  The doorway is 7 feet top to bottom, and the blanket won't cover the whole thing but will leave about a one-foot gap top or bottom.
> 
> ...


  Do you have to go up to this level at all? If not cover the doorway with the two sided tape and plastic for a patio door.


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## LLigetfa (Dec 7, 2008)

gyrfalcon said:
			
		

> I'm still curious about a bottom gap versus top gap.  Any thoughts on that?


Think of the cold air as water.  It has enough weight to it to move the blanket.  That is why I was suggesting something with stiffness and weight to it, like a mattress.  The blanket could still be used to seal above.  You will need to dam the cold air at the bottom if you don't want to feel a cold draft.

I was only thinking of you not peckering the wall/casings with holes to try and keep the blanket sealed.  Air pressure will only work with you to seal the blanket if it is on the pressure side.  The cold air will pressure the opening from the stairs side.  The warm air, pressure from the stove side.  If you nail it shut, you cannot pass through either.


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## gyrfalcon (Dec 7, 2008)

fishinpa said:
			
		

> I have an open stairway about 20ft from my stove and I need the warm air NOT to go straight up into my kitchen. I had two sides of the stairwell to cover because the third is an interior block wall.
> 
> I chose to 'try' a moving blanket and have been very pleased with it. I hung it from the ceiling to about 20" from the floor, cutting the corner open so we can pass right through it. This way I 'think' I'm getting the best of both worlds: I'm stopping the warm air from running right up the stairs and allowing space for the cold air to come down. I hope this helped.



Thanks.  Yes, that's good to know.  My problem is slightly different, though, in that I don't want the cold air to come down.  My bedroom is on the second floor, small stove and living space on the first, so sealing off the doorway completely isn't an option.  What I'm trying to figure out is whether keeping the warm air from going up through the top is more important than keeping the colder air from flowing down in terms of heating the first floor during the day.  Guess I just have to try it to see what happens.


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## gyrfalcon (Dec 7, 2008)

Rich L said:
			
		

> Do you have to go up to this level at all? If not cover the doorway with the two sided tape and plastic for a patio door.



Sure do need to go up unless I'm going to sleep on the floor in the living room...

I'm actually not trying to go for the perfect system, just whether I can cut down some on the heat exchange and heat my first-floor daytime living space a  bit better.  I like cold for sleeping, up to a point, and the stove right under my bedroom keeps it from getting too cold even for me.


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## gyrfalcon (Dec 7, 2008)

LLigetfa said:
			
		

> gyrfalcon said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Gotcha.  I thought you were suggesting a mattress instead of a blanket, which seemed pretty cuckoo, but now I get what you mean.  It's a good idea, but not practical in this situation, especially since I do sleep on 2nd floor.


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## LLigetfa (Dec 7, 2008)

Is this blanket a short term test or a long term solution?


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## gyrfalcon (Dec 7, 2008)

Dow N. Jones said:
			
		

> leaving gap under blanket aint bad or better than on top.better to block it totally with such as a tarp i think. stand on the cold side of the blanket to feel on top how much heat is going thru. stand on warm side of blanket to feel how much cold is rushing down under blanket gap.



Thanks, Dow.  That's what I was wondering.  These movers' blankets are terrific insulators, but they're made out of some incredibly tough synthetic material you can hardly get a safety pin through, so I can't just cut and paste, so to speak, to make one long one.   I guess I'll hang one lower and use a spare thermal curtain to block the top just for the experiment, and if it seems to work, figure out something more, um, esthetic.  I can live with a movers' blanket in my living room, just barely, but the patchwork effect of two different materials is going too far!


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## gyrfalcon (Dec 7, 2008)

LLigetfa said:
			
		

> Is this blanket a short term test or a long term solution?



A test, basically.  If it makes a real difference, then I'll figure out something more permanent, might even get an actual door, since there used to be one there some time in the past-- hinge holes and doorknob catch still there.  My old-fashioned self kind of likes the idea of using a blanket, though.


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## gyrfalcon (Dec 7, 2008)

Dow N. Jones said:
			
		

> if u put the gap on top, u will have warm air going into stairwell=warmer stairwell. if gap on bottom, descending cold from stairwell will not have a thermal loop = colder stairwell. i'd start with gap on bottom.



Well, I just hung two of these musty, ugly old things on hooks inside the stairwell, one from the top and the other lower down to cover the bottom-- more or less, so we'll see how it goes.


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## kenny chaos (Dec 7, 2008)

We have a hallway that leads upstairs and I had the wife pick up a spring loaded shower rod from which we hang an old quilt doubled in two.
It was my idea. :coolsmile:  The wife liked the idea so much that she did it herself. Did I say the shower rod was my idea?  No mattresses or nails or tacks or hamsters.


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## gyrfalcon (Dec 7, 2008)

kenny chaos said:
			
		

> We have a hallway that leads upstairs and I had the wife pick up a spring loaded shower rod from which we hang an old quilt doubled in two.
> It was my idea. :coolsmile:  The wife liked the idea so much that she did it herself. Did I say the shower rod was my idea?  No mattresses or nails or tacks or hamsters.



Truly an awesomely brilliant idea, no question.  I stand in awe... (hamsters??)

Unless you know of a place to get 15+ foot quilts, that's not going to work real well for me, unfortunately.  As honored as I would be to attempt to appropriate your invention. 

I just put in a couple hooks and punched holes in the movers' blankets to hang on them for now.  The good thing about using ugly smelly old crappy stuff is not worrying about how it looks or how many holes you put in it.  If it seems worth it, I may try a couple spare thermal curtains and see if that does as well, in which case I will surely use your splendid technique.


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## gyrfalcon (Dec 7, 2008)

Oh, boy, immediate results on this.  The first floor heated up lickity split and the heat's spreading out farther, too.  I'm definitely a convert.  Just hoping the 2nd floor doesn't get too cold.  We're only around 32 today, but we've got low teens daytime coming up in a day or two, which will be the real test.

Thanks, everyone, for your advice.


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## begreen (Dec 7, 2008)

Once you understand the flow of air, it is pretty easy to come up with a compromise that regulates the upstairs temps better. We have a large open staircase that allows ready flow of cold air from upstair and hot air in return. I measured a 5 degree difference in temps at the stair step level (low) and at 6 feet above the same step. 

Now that you know the issue, you can work out a "valve" in the doorway to regulate this flow. Experiment with partial covering of the doorway until you are satisfied with the result. In our case I ended up putting in a false, 18" lintel at the ceiling level to regulate the heat heading up the open staircase. It's working better, but I'm still fine tuning it. In your case, perhaps a louvered door might permit just the right amount of flow?


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## LLigetfa (Dec 7, 2008)

They also make spring loaded curtain rods in a variety of lengths.  I used a few of them to form a barrier in a hallway for the dog before she learned her limits.  We now use them wall to wall in the bathroom to hang laundry.

In the construction (reno) industry, they often use vertical spring poles to hold up poly partitions to contain an area.


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## snowtime (Dec 7, 2008)

This thread brought back some old memories. In 72 when I built our first log house we got 6' of snow on Nov 6 and had to move in. No doors so my DW hung 2 wool  blankets over the front door. It worked like a charm. Even in -45 the blankets enabled us to keep the house at 70 or above. It worked so well that I did other projects until about the middle of Feb. then the DW said she was ready for a real door and you know what that means.


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## gyrfalcon (Dec 7, 2008)

BeGreen said:
			
		

> Once you understand the flow of air, it is pretty easy to come up with a compromise that regulates the upstairs temps better. We have a large open staircase that allows ready flow of cold air from upstair and hot air in return. I measured a 5 degree difference in temps at the stair step level (low) and at 6 feet above the same step.
> 
> Now that you know the issue, you can work out a "valve" in the doorway to regulate this flow. Experiment with partial covering of the doorway until you are satisfied with the result. In our case I ended up putting in a false, 18" lintel at the ceiling level to regulate the heat heading up the open staircase. It's working better, but I'm still fine tuning it. In your case, perhaps a louvered door might permit just the right amount of flow?



Interesting idea.  So you just blocked off the upper 18 inches and left the rest open?  It may just be the vagaries of the "mixed hardwood" selection, but the stove also went right up to about 450, where it quits at 400 most of the time, so I'm thinking the colder air running down the stairs and almost directly into the stove might be worth continuing to block. 

I'll have to see how the upstairs goes for a few days.  If it only gets, say, 5 or 6 degrees colder up there, that's no problem at all and I'll keep the whole doorway blocked off.  If it's just a bit too cold when I go to bed to sit up and read, I put on a small space heater for about 5 minutes, and that's pretty much all it takes.  If I'm burrowing down under the covers and going right to sleep, I don't even need or want that.

I'm thinking, too, I could totally unblock the door overnight, since the oil burner has to take up the slack of the tiny stove's short burn time anyway to keep things downstairs just above intolerable first thing in the morning.

Anyway, I'll just need to see how it's working for a few days and then try some experimenting.


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## gyrfalcon (Dec 7, 2008)

snowtime said:
			
		

> This thread brought back some old memories. In 72 when I built our first log house we got 6' of snow on Nov 6 and had to move in. No doors so my DW hung 2 wool  blankets over the front door. It worked like a charm. Even in -45 the blankets enabled us to keep the house at 70 or above. It worked so well that I did other projects until about the middle of Feb. then the DW said she was ready for a real door and you know what that means.



Wow, two blankets and no door and -45??  Can that be true?  That's just stunning.  All these modern building and insulating materials and storm doors and the rest of it, and a couple of blankets does the trick even better.  Amazing.  That 6 foot of snow around the house probably helped a lot, too.

You gotta watch out, though.  When we women start demanding actual doors, that means we're getting serious, as it sounds like you found out .  Heh.


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## gyrfalcon (Dec 7, 2008)

The effect of this is really amazing, a lot more than I would ever have expected.  My north-facing office, which is off the far end of the long room the stove is on the other end of, is up to 67 with no fan and certainly no cheating with the little space heater.  It does have a temp floor since it's on a separate zone with the (1st floor) bathroom, and I have that set to low 60s because of the presence of a new little kitten temporarily housed in the BR, but it's 3 or 4 crucial degrees warmer in here than it was with that 2nd floor doorway open.  I guess since the heat can't go up, it's spreading out sideways more instead.


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## LLigetfa (Dec 7, 2008)

My hearth room is in an ell and my fireplace has the central heat blower option.  As long as I have electricity, I can keep the entire ground floor (open plan) fairly even except for the laundry/mud room which is at the opposite end.  The upstairs is a few degrees cooler but fairly even as long as doors are kept open.

When the power goes out, it's a different story.  The cookstove is gas so we can still cook.  We've only had short outages with -40 temps so have yet to find out for how long and how warm we can keep the house.  The wife thinks we should get a backup generator.


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## MikeC (Dec 7, 2008)

Hello:

New to the forums. Looking into a wood insert. I live in split level home. Bedrooms are six steps up from the living where the fireplace sits. I was wondering if I turn the thermostat to fan, would it  help circulate the warm air to the second floor? Just wondering if it would work. 

Thanks


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## gyrfalcon (Dec 7, 2008)

LLigetfa said:
			
		

> My hearth room is in an ell and my fireplace has the central heat blower option.  As long as I have electricity, I can keep the entire ground floor (open plan) fairly even except for the laundry/mud room which is at the opposite end.  The upstairs is a few degrees cooler but fairly even as long as doors are kept open.
> 
> When the power goes out, it's a different story.  The cookstove is gas so we can still cook.  We've only had short outages with -40 temps so have yet to find out for how long and how warm we can keep the house.  The wife thinks we should get a backup generator.



I'm with your wife.   Power on or off makes no difference in heating my house, other than losing the overnight backup of the oil burner, but nothing I couldn't live with fairly comfortably for a while.  Got plenty of canned goods and a little Sterno stove for coffee or soup, but I might go semi-crazy if deprived of both TV and Internet for very long.

My neighbors about a mile down the road have a good generator set-up, and they've told me I'm welcome to hole up with them if we ever have another ice storm like the one a few years ago that had power out all over the state for weeks.  If you have neighbors you can tolerate, you might see about splitting the cost and doubling up in one or the other house in the event of a long-lasting outage.

But man, I would not want to go with a burner that needed a blower and no source of power in -40.  Probably not in plain old 0, for that matter.


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## gyrfalcon (Dec 7, 2008)

Wowie zowie!  Stove is near 500, something I've only managed once before with my very best wood, and what I'm burning right now certainly ain't that.  Room temp around the stove is up to 80, 68 in my office off the other side of the house.

I'm stunned.  I was only hoping to get a couple degrees from closing off the stairs, but wow.  It's not like there was even particularly an ankle-level cold draft noticeable from that stairway door, so I'm just gob-smacked, as the Brits say, by the extent of the difference it's making.


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## LLigetfa (Dec 7, 2008)

gyrfalcon said:
			
		

> But man, I would not want to go with a burner that needed a blower and no source of power in -40...


Don't get me wrong, I can still burn a decent fire, just can't get the same even heat throughout the house.  Might even have to resort to closing off sections of the house.  We had an outage last winter in -40 that lasted a few hours.  We invited the neighbor over since they don't have the option of wood heat but they finally dragged out their generator after realizing the outage might drag on.

As long as the power isn't out for days, I'd much sooner hold up in my hearth room with a quilt over the entrance than fight with trying to get a generator going in -40 outside.


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## gyrfalcon (Dec 7, 2008)

LLigetfa said:
			
		

> As long as the power isn't out for days, I'd much sooner hold up in my hearth room with a quilt over the entrance than fight with trying to get a generator going in -40 outside.



Well, there is that!  I wouldn't want to go to the neighbors', either, nice as they are, unless things got pretty desperate.  But the thing of it is, you don't get any advance notice about the power going out for days and days because of some freak weather event like an ice storm, and no chance to rush out and buy a generator before it happens.  Huddling around the hearth is fun and cozy for a few hours, but it gets maddening and then really depressing pretty fast.  Each to his own, though.  If my neighbors hadn't spoken up, I'd go out and get a small one myself since those kinds of outages sure can happen here.


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