MOVING THE HEAT AROUND YOUR HOUSE?

[RIDGERUNNER30]

A few nights ago the temps got around the upper 40's ,so i decide to build a good fire , my stove is located toward the back of my house in a den room ,that we all hang out in and there is a master bedroooms room on top of the den room, both rooms are 20X20 and where recently build, they have good insulation and widows ,my question is what the most productive way to get all this heat from my stove to front part of my house ? the den room entrance door has a four foot openig which leds into my kitcken, the other night i notice the temps where 78degrees in the den room but the temps toward the front part of the house 72 degrees, will burning in the colder months be easier to get the heat moving around or should i put a blower on my stove and invest in a good stand fan to blow the heat toward the front part of house? I have a ceiling fan installed in the den room and master bedroom will they make a big difference? If so should they blow down or be reversed ? any advice or comments from the experts is greatly apperciation

 

[Dix]

A floor plan is going to be a big help here.

That, plus we're all junkies like that

 

[greythorn3]

i thought your supposed to put the fan on the floor in the cold room blowing towards the room with the wood stove to create circulation. im no expert though.

 

[branchburner]

I would put a cheap box fan on the floor in the 4' doorway to the den, blowing the cooler floor air in - that will push the warm air back out above. The ten buck solution.

 

[begreen]

Correct. Use a table or box fan and put it on the floor in the kitchen, blowing towards the den where the stove is. You want to move the cold air low towards the heat. Warm air will move in to replace it.

 

[afblue]

Cold air on the floor in, or warm air out at the ceiling. You could use the forced air system of the house, but again to what I first said, the cold air returns in the stove room will have minimal results if they are on the floor, they need to be moved up the wall.

 

[Bone1099]

Cold air is more dense therefore same fan moves more cold air than warm air. Also fan on floor is much easier to accomplish than fan at ceiling. unless it is an existing ceiling fan which may be helpful in reverse direction (blowing up not down) since you already have it in place give it a try on low maybe medium and see if it makes enough airflow without a fan on the floor. Box fans move alot of air and if left on low really dont use a whole lot of energy. As to the fan in the forced air unit, most forced air units have a heat exchanger outside or under your house if you run the fan to circulate air seems to me that an outside heat exchanger would "eat" a whole lot of your warm air just to circulate some heated then cooled air but im no engineer anybody else got input on this? I have an insert and have always wanted to install some kind of decorative but not very noticeable intake in the ceiling above my insert and run insulated ducting to my two furthest bedrooms with an inline fan. Seems like it would work pretty good maybe something similar would be helpful to you.
Hope i could help
T-Bone

 

[strawman]

My earth-berm type home has a forced air counter-flow furnace. Heat ducts are under the concrete floor and cold air returns are in the attic. They draw cold air between two studs from register by the floor. I plan to reroute two of the cold air runs to grills in the ceiling of the room the stove is in, close the warm-air register in that room, and turn on the furnace blower. I expect getting excess heat out of that room to be just as, if not more, beneficial as getting heat to the other rooms. We'll see.

 

[Hurricane]

Using the central air / heat unit fan is worthless. The warm air that is sucked in the returns is cooled immediately does not warm the other rooms. This is from experience, and I have tried leaving the fan on for a long period of time. The issue is all of the vents are cold and the air is only high 70's going in the returns.
Floor fan works very well, and low speed is usually all you need.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I agree with the small fan blowing the cool air into the warm room. We have a long hallway and have no trouble keeping the rear rooms warm using this method. We also use a ceiling fan near the stove which we run on low speed.

 

[firefighterjake]

It's been said, but I'll say it again . . . use a fan to blow the air from the cool area towards the stove . . . you will be amazed at how much of a difference this makes. If I don't run a fan, the room with the stove gets nice and toasty warm and slowly the rest of the house will get warmed, but there is a variation in temps that is notable. If you use the fan the temp difference is not as noticeable.

 

[Todd]

Fans and blowers will help some but there is no way you will even out the heat in your whole house with a wood stove, your always going to have hot and cool spots and you will get use to them. A 5 degree difference isn't that bad.

 

[katwillny]

Backwoods Savage, quick question, you mentioned ceiling fans, should I run the fan normal or on reverse? I have a split level home and the room s in the main areas are very tall. I noticed last winter while painting the rooms that it was really hot up here and much cooler at floor level. I have since installed a ceiling fan, do I run the fan normal, clockwise, or do I run it counter clockwise, reverse? All of my heat is escaping to the ceiling while the floor level is cooler, not to mention that the back rooms are considerably colder.
Thanks.

 

[madison]

Experiment with the ceiling fans, i have one in reverse and one blowing down, the up blowing fan is much more comfortable in the winter. Directions usually say blow up in winter, down in summer. Incense (or whatever) can be of some help to see what distributes the best, but if you use the "whatever" you will probably forget the results....

 

[missing link]

I have a one level ranch on a slab 30' X 60' Den on the north side with a dutchwest 224 ccl no blower [broke].
a ceiling fan in this room , it's a good open floor plan with the bedrooms on the other end of the house. The den gets really hot and I need to move the heat out to the living room & kitchen ,the den is open to the living room & diningroom/kitchen.
? should I put a fan on the floor @ the den entrance or in the hallway where the bedrooms are. my wife and myself like COLD bedroom my sons aren't as hardy the like warmth ( babies) .
all info on this thread has been helpful , shold I do a trial and eror placement of a fan on the floor?
thanks , LINK

 

[Wacky1]

Yeah, my mid entry home has the insert downstairs in the family room. Tried the furnace fan last few nights to no avail. Going to try the box fan idea. Only 5-8 degree difference upstairs from room to room, downstairs down right hot. Say 85 downstairs 70-78 upstairs. Working on 68-73 whole house temp.

 

[SufficientSelf.com]

Fantastic thread!

I remember trying to use a box fan and mounting it up high on a shelf to "push" hot air into the other rooms. Pushing cold air, especially if it is more dense, into the room with the stove would be much easier and hopefully more effective!

Here's my layout below. The room to the left has the wood stove and I try to get the heat from there, down the hall, through the kitchen, and into the bedrooms. Not easy, but we're fine with a +/- 5 degree heat difference.

I can't wait to give the pull in the cold air and then using ceiling fans to help even more!

 

[schortie]

This is the reason that I don't fix those leaky windows and doors. I figure it helps move the air around pretty good.

 

[szumbrun]

I'm very new to stoves and recently had one intstalled in the family room, which is at the end of our house. We have no blower on the unit and due to the lack of openness of our floor plan, I was not expecting to be able to heat our upstairs. To my surprise, simply putting a box fan on the floor of the kitchen blowing into the room with the stove significantly improves circulation throughout the house and has made the upstairs feel comfortable. It's incredible how much the fan helps.

Having a box fan always sitting there is not really a long term option though. I'm looking into other, more permanent options that are less noticeable, but that still have the same effect. Considering 2 options now: 1. putting room to room in-wall registers with blowers that should do the same thing, but look better; or 2. install level to level registers with blowersin them in the back of the room with the stove to transfer the cooler upstairs air into the stove room to push all of that hot air out and move it round the house.

 

[greythorn3]

This is the reason that I don't fix those leaky windows and doors. I figure it helps move the air around pretty good.

same here...

 

[begreen]

Umm, I think the idea is to move the heat within the house envelope and not to move it outdoors.