Basement Stove, Using Furnace to Move Air

[OpenWater]

Hey Folks,

Anyone have experience pulling hot air into your HVAC and using your furnace fan to circulate heated air?

I've got an Englander 30 in my basement. It was the only place it could go, unfortuantely, but it does pretty well getting heat to the upstairs and I'd like to improve this. I was thinking floor registers, and had an HVAC guy over the discuss options. He looked at my stove, saw the air return duct from upstairs about 8 feet away from the stove, and said: "Put a vent in that duct and circulate the air with your furnace fan." Well, I thought, for a guy that coud have suggested a pricey alternative, that's an interesting idea. He suggested covering a return vent or two from the upstairs to increase uptake of hot air from the basement. I've got great draft with my stove, but would drawing air out of the basement cause smoke leakage / negative pressure problems? I've got an OAK, but it is not installed. Might that help? HVAC guy thought I would not need it.

We also discussed centrally located registers in the floor, with cold air returns to the basement near walls, possibly with small fans to draw more air down into the basement.

Thanks for any and all input!!

CB

 

[Tony H]

My next door neighbor has a large woodburner in the great room and they use the furnace on fan to pull it thru the house and they say it works pretty good the bedrooms stay a little cooler but they like it that way

 

[Lumber-Jack]

Hey Folks,

Anyone have experience pulling hot air into your HVAC and using your furnace fan to circulate heated air?

Thanks for any and all input!!

CB

Hey CB, That's what I do. I leave the furnace fan on low all the time, 24/7. Cleans the air and moderates the temperature throughout the house.
I do have one duct fan installed above the passageway, close to the ceiling, of my stove room that sucks the hot air from near the ceiling and blows it down into the hallway towards the cold air return vent and the base of the stairs going upstairs. The moment I turn on this fan and it begins blowing the hot air out of the stove room you can feel the cold air near the floor returning on it's own.
Running your furnace fan 24/7 it is important to change your furnace filters often. I use high quality furnace filters and change them monthly.

I think in your case if you could have a return air vent near the ceiling of your stove room downstairs and had a duct fan installed in the floor blowing cold air down from the upstairs to positively pressurize your stove room you would have good success. I would be careful about blocking any cold air returns, you can damage your furnace fan if it blocks the return air circulation too much, especially if you run it all the time like I do.
If you already have a good draft in your stove and you use a duct fan to blow air from the floor upstairs into your stove room an oak might not be necessary. You can always add it later if need be.

Their are a lot of naysayers in this forum about using ducting to move wood stove heat, but I have had great success.

 

[ansehnlich1]

I would make the suggestion one does some research regarding the dangers of combining forced air and wood stove heat.

I know I just built a new home in Pennsylvania and every little hole/opening between floors had to be sealed with fireproof material, and now I read on here that cutting a hole right above the wood stove may be a good suggestion?

Interesting, to say the least.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

It's true that there is a small correlation between open ducting and expedited spread of fire from room to room and floor to floor, however there is probably a much greater correlation in house fires in the first place, between homes that have wood stoves and those that do not. As long as you have a wood stove in your home there will be an increased risk of fire in relationship to that wood fired appliance.
For myself, if the unthinkable happens and a fire starts, I feel much safer, and sleep much sounder, knowing I have have plenty of warning from properly maintained smoke alarms going off than from thinking that the fire might be slightly restrained in one part of the house because there is no air duct from that room to the next.

As ansehnlich suggest, good to do some research, then make an informed choice.

 

[Tony H]

I spent alot of time sealing caulking insulating between the shop in the basement and the 1st floor and also between the master bedroom and the family room and would not want to cut an access hole to let sound thru but an insulated duct run with a fan in it would not be nearly as bad.
When doing that same remodeling we installed the hard wired smoke / co alarms in every bedroom and in common spaces if one goes off they all go off and they also have backup batteries in each unit. They are a must as far as I'm concerned for anyone using a wood burning appliance.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

No house should be without smoke alarms.
I'm much more worried about a kitchen fire than a fire from the wood stove though, kitchen fires happen way more easily.

 

[EL DRIFTO]

i think it's a great idea & mine's in my signature
hope that helps :zip:

in my example, recirc to the basement is maintained by the huge cold air return system that's wide open since i rerouted mine.
in fact it should pick up the coldest air upstairs, if you ever got the basement door shut, that's pinned open for the cat box.

 

[Rob From Wisconsin]

The effectiveness of it will depend upon the age of your house.
Newer houses are required to bring-in "fresh" air for their HVAC systems.
How do I know??
I tried the same on our previous house (less than 10 yrs. old), and our indoor temp.
dropped like a rock. Further investigation uncovered that there existed a fresh air intake
for our HVAC system.
Then again, if your house is older, your system may be "closed", and this would work for you.

 

[begreen]

I have to say that this fellow's suggestions seem to be a bit off the mark. Is he a licensed HVAC installer? The concerns brought up are all valid. Yes, there could be a negative pressure issue, especially if some main floor returns were blocked and there are competing devices running in the basement (dryer, bath fan, etc.). A well designed forced air system is balanced. Blocking off vents or returns is often a bad idea unless the system is rebalanced for this change. I'm also a bit little surprised that the HVAC guy would suggest an illegal installation, but perhaps he is not aware of the requirement to keep the return air intake at least 10' away from the stove?

In some cases, with a modern, well-insulated ducting system and low-energy (dc motor) fan system, one can use the furnace system to help distribute heat. But very often, this fails due to heat loss in the duct runs. Long runs in ranch homes can be particularly bad. The exception is a ducting system designed for lower duct temps like a heat pump system. It can also be inefficient due to the power used to run the fan constantly. But a multi-speed, dc motor system, is not as bad particularly if it is run at low speed.

CB, if you can post a floor plan illustrating the locations that you are trying to add more heat to, that would help. If cutting holes in the floor, to increase natural convective circulation, the vents should have fusible link dampers.