# Pushing hot air downstairs



## peterrum (Mar 12, 2010)

Hello all;

I thought I would pose this question here to see what others may have done. There is always some brilliance on this site.

Here is my situation. I live in a 1500 square foot home which is upstairs, the main floor garage/workshop is also the same square footage. In the living area I have my woodstove which is our main source of heat. We used this all winter to heat the house and it works very well, didnt have to turn the electric heat on once. We have a cathedral ceiling so alot of the hot air rises up to the peak and we push it down with a ceiling fan on occasion. The downstairs garage workshop is not heated. I can't install a woodstove down there. I would like to get some of the heat from the upstairs and have it pushed downstairs to the garage/workshop. I have been thinking about using a heat exchanger with a small fan and piping the heat from the woodstove, through the floor below it and into the workshop. Has anyone done this before using a heat exchanger or ducting/fan system to force the warm air to a lower level. If so, how well does your system work and of course photos are always good. Thanks for any ideas that come forward. I am going to be away for a week so it will be a while before I come back to respond. Going to spend the week at my cabin getting next winters firewood supply.


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## KsWoodsMan (Mar 13, 2010)

The problem with trying to push hot air down stairs is, thats where the cold air wants to go. The cold air will displace warm air about as fast as you can reasonable push it down there. 


Unless you are going to heat the area directly, to do much good down there you would be better off getting the cold air out and letting warm air replace it. A 'cold air return' that draws the cold air from the floor of the lower level, returning it to the heating appliance is in order.

If you force the heated air down , the first place it is going to head for is the ceiling. Then to the nearest stairway and back to the warm upstairs. To get it to stay down there you are going to have to entice it to stick around by getting the cold air out first.

Think about it for a mniute, if the cold air has no where to go, dumping cold air down there will only heat the floor upstairs or the ceiling and stairway downstairs. That's why a properly placed 'cold air return' is on or near the floor.

Now that this is covered I'll let others chime in about how to get/produce heat down there for you. I'm sure there will be plenty of ideas,


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## mga (Mar 13, 2010)

good reply, KS, so, what if he were to draw the cold air up, heat it, then return it?

cold air has to be drawn from the lowest point, of course.


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## KsWoodsMan (Mar 13, 2010)

Good point MGA . He will want to heat that air before releasing it to another part of the house or returning it to the shop.

If he was even to draw it out of the shop, heat it and release it in the regular living space, leaving the door open to down there the cool air off the floors would find it's way down there. That air would still be warmer than what was there to start with. 

There was a previous thread where I suggested this idea and it was shot down. I either went into to fine of detail trying to explain the idea or not enough detail. Regardless, the idea was lost to most that responded to the idea and I gave up trying to explain it. I wished the OP well and declined further discussion.


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## mga (Mar 13, 2010)

what i did in my house, i draw the air from the farthest room and use that to feed my fireplace blower. the blower throws hot air into the room where the fireplace is, but the negative air pressure in the far room draws the warm ait into it.

it works great and even when it's like zero out, that room never gets below 68. it's a bedroom so, i don't want it too warm anyways. problem is on warmer days, it does get a little warm down there.

but, since it's almost free heat.....i ain't complainin'.

any room is possible to heat as long as you understand the thermo dynamics...lol....for lack of a better phrase.


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## CPO (Mar 13, 2010)

Try radiant heat not forced air. Much better heat retention using water as the thermal medium. they make raidant baseboards and you could even just use thermal syphon if you plumb it good enough if you don't want to run a pump.

I am in the process of doing just that at my place I have existing raidant heat using an electric boler and I am building a tank that piggybacks my stove and still fits in the dead space behind the insert and then I will tap it in to my existing raidant heating system. Should be no problem getting the Water to 180*-200* which is the same temp my boiler runs. I will use thermal syphon when the basement is not occupied and will run the pumps when it is.


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