Chalet - using in-line duct fans to heat lower bedrooms

[alaspina]

I have a small chalet about 1500 sq feet; where the bedrooms are below grade and the wood stove is on the open main level. The designer of many of these chalets in my area always installs these fans with duct work to the lower bedrooms. So there are three fans at the top of the main room ceiling each venting to a downstairs bedroom. I can post a picture of one of the fans as well.
I just purchased the house and two of the fans do not work, I haven't looked into whether it is the fan or the electric, but my question is whether to replace them or not. It doesn't seem like forcing heat down is a great idea. Does anyone know if these will work to heat the downstairs bedrooms? They also have electric baseboard heat in each room.
Thanks.

 

[alaspina]

Here is a pic of one of the fan boxes. The wood stove is in the center of the room maybe 10 feet from each fan.

 

[Dobish]

to me this seems like a great idea, especially since heat rises. there is no need for it to be up at the top of the ceiling, so why not push it down below?

 

[iron]

i'm a newb, but did have an in-line duct fan that tried to push air from my EPA flreplace to my basement. this was a straight shot, with hot air coming directly out of the back of the fireplace box. about 8ft vertically straight down. it was luke warm air at best. not sure what the issue was. seems like it should've worked. i gave up and removed it.

 

[mvn138]

My experience with using an in-line duct fan was to assist moving heat from a "Cheap Charlie" pellet stove located in the cellar of my last home. The run was a relatively short horizontal run of about 14 feet, which worked well, but it also resulted in a considerable fan noise due to the fan's location to the registers. So, that may be a factor in your decision. If it were me, I would definitely use the duct work and I would look at experimenting with reversing the air flow and pushing the cold air up to the ceiling before replacing any fans.

 

[alaspina]

Thanks for the responses. Everything I have read tends to lean toward this not working, but I figured since they are already there I could replace the broken fans at little cost and see if it works.

 

[JA600L]

The real question is where does the cold air go when the warm air is blown into the rooms? Is there a floor level fan pumping return cold air up to the stove room? It doesn't seem like an effective loop.

 

[begreen]

Are those ducts in outer walls? If so I wouldn't bother. The heat loss over that length looks like it would be significant. Is there a ceiling fan or two installed? That might be more effective.

 

[mvn138]

My thoughts were with JA600L on the loop being inefficient that is why I thought it wouldn't hurt to try to reverse the loop. Depending on Alaspina's needs, or the lack of access to the bedrooms it may be adequate even with the duct work in the exterior walls as Begreen mentioned, since no one would be immediately feeling the cold air coming out of the register at the ceiling level. If the fans are located at the bottom of the loop, it would be easier to push the cold air up into the loft and creating a more natural loop that would allow air to work itself into the remote bedrooms. Yes, it is not the most efficient situation, but it would work, just maybe not to the level you would be satisfied with in the end. If it were me I would try it just to satisfy my curiosity and I would not be able to resist with everything already place. You may want to experiment with a small box fan or desk fan first by mounting it to an inlet in the bedroom and see if you can feel or observe a temperature change over time with a thermometer.

Or, two small electric baseboard heaters could do the trick as well.