Say you burn wood in a fireplace or stove in the middle of the house (no upstairs) and your bedroom is at the end of the house. What mechanisms or tactics would allow you to control the temp? Assuming it’s stoked until morning. A thermostat that controlled your burning would be cool, does it exist? Or airflow? Right now, my fireplace fire is too hot! But it’s just a plain fireplace. Then there’s inserts, stoves, etc. Just curious about what improvements have been invented.
First I'd try to even out the heat in the house and sometimes you have to do that by usings fans. Yet most folks use them wrong! Blow the cooler air from the far rooms toward the stove room. Don't try to move the warm air by blowing that. Blow the cool air into the warm air and this will circulate it nicely. Just blow it slowly to keep away from a cold draft.
In my house blowing cool air toward the stove did not work as well as blowing warm air from the stove. Not everyone's setup works the same.
Modern wood furnaces and boilers have a great degree of electronic control, and are often hooked to a thermostat.
I have had the same experience as you oldspark. I have a fireplace with a blower on it that is in room with a vaulted ceiling with a 3/4 high wall separating the living room and kitchen. The hallway down the house has a standard flat 8 foot ceiling. I have tried all angles and position from a second fan and have found that the fan placed on top of the 3/4 wall [about 7 feet high] blowing down the hallway works best for me.
I blow room air across and up the back of my stove with a heat shield I built that has a small fan built into the heat shield. Prior to this I had nothing behind the stove and tried to make it work by blowing air with a fan , I just did not work. I Fabricated a heat shield/fan combination, and it made a huge difference. We have a standard ranch house setup and the bedrooms at the end of the hall are a little cooler but comfortable for sleeping.
I control the house temp mainly by setting the air draft, somewhat by loading the stove to match the outside temp. Let it cruise along until the next reload. We keep all the bedroom doors closed, prefer it cooler for sleeping.
