I'm thinking of cutting some wall vents to help heat move from room to room (see pic). Eventually this gaping hole in the wall will be closed off and a door will be cut in to the wall at the top of the steps from the basement. Good idea or bad idea? I'm assuming I would need cold air vents in the floor...
Yeah the stove is in the basement. The heat comes up the steps but some of it seems to get caught on the ceiling of the pictures room. It's always about 5-10* warmer in there than the adjacent room. I tried the fan on the floor with little luck.
Just make the doorway bigger ? Or, sliding doors for your new openings: Might not be room on the right due to the sloping ceiling. Sliding doors come in varying widths. There are quite a few ways to open up walls. Load-bearing walls can be tricky.
which way did you have the fan headed? If you want a floor fan to work, you have to pull the cold air off the floor of the cooler area and blow it towards to source of the heat. The warm air will automatically back fill the cooler room. As that air cools it will drop to the floor and be pulled out by the fan, pushed towards the heat for reheating and so on. Ceiling fans on winter mode are the best for keeping a room evenly heated. I had one at the top of the stairs. The did the most for circulating heat without the draft of a fan blowing. Cutting vents in walls or ceiling is touchy esp. with insurance. You have to have duct work connecting both sides of the openings.
floor vents will help the cold air sink and allow the hot air to rise. I plan on doing this to a 2 story house I'm working on. They won't necessarily allow the hot air up thru the vent but it will get air moving passively. At least that is what I am lead to believe. Oh an any holes you create need some form of firestop. They make vents with a "fuse" so the vent door will slam shut if the temperature rises above that threshold to prevents flames from spreading faster.
Our form of fire stop was to build a “chase” or duct from the floor vent down to within 6-8” of the basement slab. The cold air blanket on the main floor has an easier time dropping down as opposed to using the stairwell to move both warm and cool air.
My house design is great at air movement, raised ranch style stairs center of house, sloped ceilings. Interested to see what works for you.
My plan is to put in a split door similar to the one pictured so I can open the top but keep the stairs blocked off. Little ones and stairs dont seem to mix from my understanding.
It was blowing toward the basement steps. I suppose I could try installing a ceiling fan in the room with the basement steps. There is one already installed in the cooler room that is set on winter mode.
