Newbie - circulating the air

[Mury]

We have been running our new Lopi Leyden for 5 days now. Everything is working great. However we would like to warm the whole house (or most of it) rather than having one room be an inferno.

Layout of the house. It is a 100 year old new englander, smallish rooms. We have 2 stories, 900 sqf first floor, 500 sqf above. The stove is in the middle of the downstairs in a room with two doorways, a standard size leading to the dining room and a double door leading to the living room. From the front of the living room you access the foyer/stairs and from the foyer you access the dining room. So there is a circular traffic pattern between these rooms. (We also have a kitchen and sunroom that stick off the main house and that we expected to use space heaters for.)

As I write this, the room the stove is in is 83, living room is warm, but the dining room is 64 and upstairs bedrooms are 54. I knew the bedrooms would be cooler but this seems ridiculous.

How would you all suggest we distribute the heat better? We have two fans running downstairs which don't seem to be helping much. One option is to put a vent in the ceiling above the stove into our kids bedroom.

Thanks for any help or advice!

 

[j00fek]

i think all the walls in your house impede the airflow

 

[Shortstuff]

I'm not sure what your building codes are in NH, but here in MA any direct open vents between floors is a no-no for fire safety reasons. You mentioned a couple of fans running, but didn't say what kind of fans or size but unless you can have them turning at a slow rpm they will cool the air more than help circulate the warm air.

The general idea is to get the air flowing in a somewhat circular pattern on the first floor and find a way to draw some of the warm air upstairs. Even though you describe your floor plan, it's still difficult to "see" it. Some say that a couple of small (computer fan small) fans at floor level may help circulate the air, others say to reverse ceiling fans (air flow upward) on low, some say air flow downward.

I have made it a habit to keep the power supply and fans from old computers before I toss them so I have something to experiment with. I currently have one good size computer fan that runs on 120v with an in line switch hanging in an upper corner of a doorway pulling the warm air out of the main room where the pellet stove is and pushing it towards the back of the house. Believe it or not, this actually works. If the fan is 12v then use the power supply. You can also purchase these "door" fans in stores.

You have to experiment. The idea is to get the warm air flowing in one direction either clockwise or counter-clockwise throughout the floor that the pellet stove is located on, then find a way to draw the warm air upstairs. It can be done, but will take time and patience to get it right. Keep in mind that pellets stoves are primarily used to heat the floor it is installed on although some have had good luck getting that warm air upstairs. Also, there are SOOOOOOO many variables to each home that no one set way of circulating air is etched in stone for every home.

Hope this helps.

Steve

 

[Lance1]

If you have a central heating/cooling system in the house, turn on the fan.

 

[Mury]

We're using a box fan and large oscillating fan. I'll try replacing the box fan with a desk fan for now. I've looked at the door frame fans. Do those work pretty well? Don't really mind the noise considering that the stove is noisy anyway. Thanks for the tip about the low speed. I was running them high in an effort to move more air and didn't think about cooling it.

 

[Garry P]

Have you tried putting the fan on the floor in the dorrway of the cold room, blowing toward the warm rooms? It took me a while to grasp it when I read it here, seems backwards, but you need to move the cold air out to give the warm air room to fill.

 

[ferrondave]

My stove is located in the living room off the foyer and the stairs for the 2nd floor are in the foyer, in my living room I have ceiling fans at either end of the room, I tried running them both in reverse, but that didn't seem to work, it seemed to pull a cold draft from the unheated 2nd floor.
I tried leaving the one in front of the stove in reverse pulling the warm are up and the one at the other end in forward, being that the doorway is in the center of the living room it seems to work out pretty well it creates like a gulf stream of air going right out the doorway and into the rest of the house.
I have 1 of those little 5" doorway fans in the doorway to give it a extra little boost, but on there own I really don't think they do much.

 

[control1]

Most of the work has been done by the stove your house is probably av 65 degrees turn the oil on for 1/2 hour evens out the temp probably costs a buck

 

[Mury]

Have you tried putting the fan on the floor in the dorrway of the cold room, blowing toward the warm rooms? It took me a while to grasp it when I read it here, seems backwards, but you need to move the cold air out to give the warm air room to fill.

Yes, I am doing that. It was an accident at first. I thought the fan was turned the other way. But when I turned the fan to blowing hot air out, the thermostat in the colder room leveled off. Now it is blowing cold air in and that works better. I have the second fan at the far side of the living room blowing at the wall. Seems to be helping the air to get sucked all the way into that room.

Does anyone use the through the wall fans? Don't want to rush to cut holes in the house, especially after hubby spent hours redoing the plaster.

Thanks for all your responses!