Hi all. I live in a 1-story ranch with an insert in the far end of the house in a room with tall, vaulted ceilings. The room with the insert gets very warm, often too warm, and does not distribute to the bed rooms down the hall at the other end of the house (hallway has much lower ceiling height and I think the hot air gets trapped above it). Over the years, I've tried all sorts of different configurations of box fans, ceiling fans, whole-house fan, ect. Nothing really works. This year, I'm thinking about installing vents and duct work, with an inline fan, to pull air from the ceiling of the hearth room and push it back to the bedrooms. HVAC guy is coming tomorrow to take a look. I'm not looking to fully heat the bedrooms, just equalize the temps and get 'some' additional heat into the bedrooms. Anyone done this before? Suggestions?
Have you tried a small fan, running on low, sitting on the floor at the far end from the stove, to blow cool air back in the direction of the stove? Cold air is much easier to move than warm...and when you move the cool air back toward the stove, the warm air is pulled in to replace it.
And moving the heat through ducts as you mention is often not real successful...I'd hate to see you spend much money to try this.
I've tried it all. Trust me.. I've. tried. it. all. Cost is relative. I'm just trying to be comfortable, not cut costs. Now, I'm not a fan of being out-right wasteful. You think I'll lose all the heat in the duct between rooms? That's my only concern.
Our Legendary Backwoods Savage taught me to blow cold air OUT of our unheated bedroom on the other side of the house. I tried everything and this actually worked! Vornado fans are the almost silent. Right now I have a Honeywell vornado knock off, not quiet but gets the job done. It's on the floor (where the coolest air settles) in the bedroom in the doorway, then at night I tilt it up to move air around the room (in place of a ceiling fan).
In our situation involving an insert at the far end of a four level split we simply use a small electric heater in the far bedrooms, and one in the basement. They do a good job evening things out as needed in terms of house heating without the furnace kicking in as the thermostat (set at 68f) is fairly close to the stove. It is pretty easy to keep our main living area at 70f even during spells of well below zero weather with the wood stove. I have not noticed any appreciable increase in our electric bill since starting this practice. This is one we have have been using. They have a low and high setting, a thermostat, are lightweight, efficient silent, and have been reliable so far. I rarely have to put them on high, and on the low setting they keep our bedroom just right for sleeping even during the coldest winter nights.
That could be a tough obstacle to overcome for sure. I trust your mention of various types of fans including ceiling fans means that there’s at least 1 ceiling fan in the insert room. I might even guess you’ve been pulling air up from below instead of blowing down… pulling up being the more efficient way. Regardless, I should think if you go ahead with adding ductwork, I would see if whatever fan can be installed in that addition might be reversible. You can experiment trying to push heated air towards the colder rooms or pulling cold air from the bedroom floors to send it back to the stove room. One way will certainly be more efficient than the other.
It often happens that way...sometimes it works...I'd say if the duct runs through an unheated space it will be a failure...unless it can be almost superinsulated.
Welcome to the forum Matt. You have received some good advice and the best is that trying to move warm air into cold is a losing exercise. Cool air is more dense than warm air and this is why you should always blow the cooler air into the stove room. But do not think you need to run a fan on high speed!!! The lowest speed will do the job nicely and then you also won't have that cool draft.
A few years back, a guy with exactly the same setup gave me a call. He had his wood stove at one end of the single story ranch in a room with vaulted ceilings. the other end of the house had standard flat ceilings and were too cold. This is what I did and his entire family was very satisfied with the results. "No more cold bedrooms!" The hallway to the bedrooms was standard height ceiling and was actually a suspended ceiling. It was easy to get above it and install a length of 8" round insulated flexible duct to an 8" tee that had two 8" to 6" reducers on it. These reducers fed the two farthest bedrooms above the door. Leaving the room with the stove, there was a walk in closet accessible from the hallway. I installed a 10" round pipe with a 6" saddle take off to feed the first bedroom on the other side of the closet. I also used an inline duct booster fan to help move air along. The inlet for this make shift ductwork was a square grille with a register box behind it that the pipe tapped into. I had my doubts about the effectiveness of it but the homeowner still talks about itto this day even though they moved from that house years ago. Maybe you want to ask the HVAC guy about something like that? Probably all you need for down there in the banana belt!
Welcome MattPM !! Another way to equalize the temperature between one end of the house and the other is to address heat loss in the cooler end. Additional insulation, especially above the ceiling will reduce heating demand in the far rooms and help to equalize the temperatures. What are the conditions of the windows at the far end of the house? I use the cheap plastic shrink film on my 1990’s era windows which almost eliminates heat loss due to warm air escaping. Insulating curtains can also help with radiant heat loss by reducing airflow near the windows.
Wow, look at that. A treasure-trove of advice waiting for me. You all are awesome. This is -exactly- my setup and what I have in mind. And yeah, meeting him at the house later today to see what he thinks and get a quote. Thanks again everyone - great advice in all of these posts. If I go forward, I'll update this thread in a couple months and let you know if it worked.
A small duct with a computer fan won't do much of anything worthwhile, but proper ductwork/plenum and effective fan should actually accomplish something. Most HVAC guys know what it takes to move air, what works and what doesn't and all the compromises in between.
Neighbor has radiant wood stove and had return air duct put in near stove and will run blower on house furnace to distribute as needed.
I have a 1 floor slab without the vaulted ceilings. I run a fan into the room with the stove, it moves the heat around the house fairly well that way. it's pulling/blowing cold air into the stove room. if you have a ceiling fan I would have it pushing the air down. No ceiling fan? I'd look into getting one of those doorway fans, I don't know how much air they move so it might not be enough. Basically I'd look at anyway to get the air rising to the ceiling to circulate, if that requires one of those drum fans pointed up to the ceiling in the middle of the floor. Than another fan pulling cold air. It's what I would try at least.
Sounds kinda like my dilemma all these years, I don't have vaulted ceilings though. I pointed a pedestal fan my insert and it seems to pull cold air into the room and push\displace all the hot air, still can't sit in there for hours but we get a bit of heat to the other end of the house.
My heating and ac guy recommends running our furnace fan on auto year round. When they were out this summer to charge our ac. He said it keeps the coil dry in the summer and helps with consistency.
That doesn't work very well in many homes...but then for a few it works fine...not sure what the difference is, but there is one!
