Need some suggestions on circulating heat...

[o2slim]

This past October my wife and I bought our first pellet stove in our first home. In 2003 the home was upgraded significantly (old home 1880). It had a heat pump added to offset the cost of the oil furnace. My goal with the pellet stove was to avoid the oil all together, so far I've been okay with heating downstairs with the stove and upstairs with the heat pump. However winter is really setting in now and my heat pump isn't keeping up any longer (To the tune of a 150 more a month in utility bills ). My problem is that the stove is fully capable of heat the entire house, but heat is not getting upstairs (and I mean at all ). I assume this is a result of the pressure the heat pump air ducts upstairs create. I'm figuring when home I should close off the air ducts upstairs and open the only two downstairs and that should circulate the heat upstairs. My only concern is that the heat pump will now be running all the time (which is bad of course ) Attached is my obscenely poor Windows Paint drawing of my simple floor plan. By looking at this does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions to my plan? Thanks a million, BTW I love coming to these forums and I really have to thank everyone that's been here, even though I'm new I researched, planned, and bought my stove with the advice and knowledge of the posts here!

-o2Slim

 

[wahoowad]

Maybe the heat is getting upstairs, but the heat is being absorbed by ceiling and walls that are poorly insulated? You did say this was an old house.

When downstairs is nice and cozy from the pellet stove, can you feel cold air cascading down the stairs?

 

[o2slim]

The cold air never makes it down the stairs but while half way up / down the stairs you can defintely feel the heat line, that never really moves.

-o2slim

 

[Marty]

I think your not getting a lot of feedback because the best method, based on your drawing, would be to cut a big old hole in the floor right above your stove... and that is a big saftey NO NO.

'Elk' had a post or two about some 'automatic shut off heat dampers' that you might be able to use to move a lot of heat based on that layout.
I cant remember the exact term for them though...

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Edit: Here it is: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/4224/

 

[laynes69]

With a layout like that, it is unlikely that you will get alot of heat in the rooms. Heat will rise, but not fill all those rooms. What I would do is run ceiling fans if you have them in the house. This will give better circulation. Also try a fan at the top of the stairs and see what happens. One thing to remember is that these homes aren't modern homes. The layouts can be poor for heating. Most big old homes had multiple chimneys to help heat them. We have an old home and it had 4 chimneys that in there day were used to heat the home.

 

[wahoowad]

If the cold air is denser, and hence heavier, why wouldn't it fall down the stairs and let the warm air slip in from above?

 

[Roospike]

I have an older home (100+) and heat the upstairs just fine.

I think you stairs are a big key to 2 floor heating. Do you have pictures of your stairs?

By looking at your set up it looks like the stairs are open to the north and the stove is on the back wall of the stairs ,
is the ceiling open from the stove room to the other rooms ? Sectioned off ? doors < big/ small >

Are the stairs boxed in top and bottom ? only top / only bottom ?

Need to see better pictures of the stove room and the stairs.

 

[laynes69]

One other thing, whats the square footage, and the sizes of the room. That will play a big part in it.

 

[begreen]

Slim, do you have a couple small fans to play with? If so try this on a temporary, experimental basis. Put one small fan - on the floor - at the base of the stairs blowing towards the formal room. If you have a second small fan, put it in the formal room - on the floor - blowing towards the livingroom opening. Have a thermometer in the hallway at the top of the stairs and take the temp before the fans are turned on. Then turn the fans on low speed (with the woodstove at full fire) and come back hourly and check temps. Let us know what happens.

 

[elkimmeg]

slim how can I break this to you,your duct system is one of the wost designs I have seen. That central hall ceiling return is stealing all heat generated below
and returning the hottest air in your home. There is absolutely no air flow because of it Your heat pump can't keep up because the design is so flawed. There is no way you are going to drag return air from the rooms below to that ceiling return cold air does not rise.

I feel your pain you had extensive remodeling and paid and trusted your heating contractor to install a system that works. What you have is a system that has no chance of working. There is zerro flow patterns. For any system to work, cold air has to be removed by the returns ,making room for warm air the returns draw down the warm air as the cold air is removed. Your system is set up exactly opposite. It can only return the warmest air drawing in the coldest air up. This is what is happening the more you need heat. the more you are running the heat pump. that heat pump is probably being over worked and you stand a good chance of prematurely burning it out.

Think of that metal return box in the upstairs ceiling this way. Much of your pellet stove heat rises, I'm willing to bet that metal box is just that exposed thin sheet metal. The rising heat is finding that box and radiating threw that thim metal into your attic. Its like have a huge window open up there again as warm air rised cooler air takes its place.

Recently post a where stoves are not preforming up to expectations all have a common problem too much infiltration of cold air threw the first floor over very drafty uninsulated basements.

Many here may think I inspect just stoves that is only a small part of my duties as a mechanical inspector HVAC is my prime function. I'm telling you the rough mechanical inspection would have failed and corrections would have been made.. I hate to see wasted energy.

Slim do not take any remarks or observations personal, they are not directed at you ,but directed at what I see from your drawing.

 

[o2slim]

elkimmeg, I completely agree! Although it wasn't my wife an I who upgraded the home, it was like that when we got here. . Last night I attempted to turn off all the duct system upstairs, however just as your mentioned above the hot air from the stove indeed made it's way upstairs but only into the central upstairs hallway, it was sucked up never to return, the rooms upstairs stayed chilly. So in the end I turned off both ducts downstairs and let the heat pump take care of the upstairs again. It seemed to work okay last night, however the pump is CONSTANTLY going cycling ( I believe this to be the result of no insulation in the attic, big problem that I'm fixing this spring! ). Think there's anyway to combat this situation?

-o2Slim

 

[o2slim]

Also in response to some above suggestions I actually plan on installing ceiling fans in all 4 upstairs rooms. THere's already one in the master bedroom that works quite well. I have a feeling 4 running at once would do a hell of a job!

-o2Slim

 

[elkimmeg]

Without attic insulation and the current HVAc system , you will not see any befificial heat from your stove and over work your heat pump ,just to have any degree of confort
By the time winter is over, your energy bill will reflect , you will spend more energy, than the cost to insulate that attic ceiling 3 times over.
Priority ##1m insulate that attic ceiling even if it is only 6" r 19 should be r30 or more. Insulated , your first monthly bill wil be lass than 1/2.

HVAC wise I can advise how to re-route that system to achieve 50% better effeciency both in heating and cooling
all other discussions about stove preformance is moot, it plain can not keep up with the rate of heat loss

Do not close bathroom doors or you will be fixing frozen pipes also open the vanity and sink doors to make it through the impending cold snap you may need to drip ot trickle water to prevent pipe freezing your heat loss is that bad. Also ceiling fans are not the imediate answer. They could endup drawing more cold out of your attic

 

[Roospike]

I have an older home (100+) and heat the upstairs just fine.

I think you stairs are a big key to 2 floor heating. Do you have pictures of your stairs?

By looking at your set up it looks like the stairs are open to the north and the stove is on the back wall of the stairs ,
is the ceiling open from the stove room to the other rooms ? Sectioned off ? doors < big/ small >

Are the stairs boxed in top and bottom ? only top / only bottom ?

Need to see better pictures of the stove room and the stairs.

Hey o2Slim , anyupdate to the posted questions ?

 

[o2slim]

Hi all sorry for the delay in my reply, job, travel, etc get's in the way! SO anyway I have given up on the idea of heating the upstairs of my home with the pellet stove and focused more on keeping the downstairs heated with it at all! As you can see from my crude draweing above, the lower level of the home has two vents for the Heat pump, of course this doesn't do a good enough job to heat the downstairs (actually the downstairs will be 50 degrees if I rely on it solely) so I had the pellet stove installed (as a replacement for the oil furnace whos job was to heat downstairs). But For the past 3 weeks the pellet stove is not heating the downstairs hardly at all, this is also the coldest weather we've has all winter (5-10 degrees at night). But my pellet stove is the Qudrafire Santa Fe rated for 1500sq, and it can't even keep the living room (roughly 15x20) above 60 degrees!! Does this sound like there could be something wrong with the pellet stove? To answer the first questions I have cleaned the pellet stove quite well every day, firepot, heat exchanges, firebox. THe pellet stove is also blowing out very hot air, although I can't tell if it's a strong as it used to be (as I never really paid attention till now). Is there anything simple that I haven't thought to check? With the heat pump blasting full on with it's aux backup running I can open both vents downstairs and run the pellet stove on high and only get the living room to about 65 degrees. Anyone have any thoughts before I fire up the old oil furnace to burn about 2 bucks an hour Hehehe!

Thanks!
-=o2slim__

 

[o2slim]

Also elkimmeg,

I did indeed insulate the attic ceiling with some r30 Heat pump is running much less often to keep upstairs heated!

Thanks!

 

[carpniels]

Hi Slim,

If you are going to insulate your upstairs ceiling, don't automatically think fiberglass matting insulation. Also look at spray foam insulation. It is the best thing ever. Slightly more money, but it also seals all air gaps. No more escaping hot air. Best thing ever. A guy on here who is a BPI inspector once said that backdrafting stoves is almost always the fault of escaping hot air upstairs. I sealed up all the holes upstairs and it made a BIG difference in my backdraft stove.

Just a tip.

Also, check around the entire house for airleaks. Easy and cheap to fix and makes the house a lot warmer.

Carpniels

 

[o2slim]

Hiya carpniels!

Thanks for the tips on insul. I got most pretty much all the cracks and holes sealed up on the first floor (not worried about upstairs yet as that's warm ).

 

[GVA]

As far as the stove not heating enough, do you have a basement?
When you are running your stove do you feel a cold draft running from your outside walls/windows along the floor keeping your feet cold?
I assume you don't use outside air for your stove....
You may be drawing cold air up through gaps in the floor around walls pipes etc.
I have a big old cold air return under the couch it's stuffed with insulation and a blanket, and I could still feel the cold air flowing past my feet when the stove was running. My upstairs is so tight that I was pulling the cold basement air into the first floor for combustion air....
I've added more insulation and covered the top of the return with a really heavy thick bathmat...... No more cold air but my stove has a somewhat lazy flame and my draft has dropped .10"hg (maybe my stove is dirty I doubt it though). For this reason I will be changing the setup of my stove in the summer to include outside air.
Just an idea of something to look at before thinking it's the stove at fault.

 

[GVA]

Wow I type real slow apparently :-/

 

[begreen]

GVA, have you been feeling a little light headed lately? I'd crack open a window near that stove.

FWIW, it's a bad idea to black off a heating system, especialy the return. Hopefully you have made it so that it can't possibly be turned on as a safety measure.

 

[o2slim]

GVA,

I do indeed have a basemnet, and I do believe a lot of my cold air is coming up from the basement area, unfortuntely there's no real way to block it as it's original 1880s hardwood floors and they have cracks in them everywhere to let up cold air . Any thoughts on how to get better circulation from elsewhere?

Thanks!
-=o2slim__

 

[GVA]

GVA, have you been feeling a little light headed lately? I'd crack open a window near that stove.

FWIW, it's a bad idea to black off a heating system, especailly the return. Hopefully you have made it so that it can't possibly be turned on as a safety measure.

I feel light headed all the time...........
No that FHA system is shut down...... Shut off switches off, breaker off, gas valve off, gas line off.... All registers have been plugged also. I actually want to dump the FHA system and change to FHW. Whoever did this house was an a-hole really bad setup..
Now the only drawback to this is if the stove breaks down I wake up to a cold house. But I can fix it and get it running pretty quick.
Trained the son to know what to look for and how to fix it if someday I actually take a vacation and am not around....