Circulating wood stove heat throughout small home

[Stacey]

I have some questions regarding heat circulation. Here are the details: My home is a passive-solar ranch, about 1300 sq ft., having 28 feet of plate window across the front (south facing) side, and only 2 small windows on the rear north side. The house was built with an enclosed hearth in the middle of the main floor, big old Warner wood stove within. Between the large amount of south-facing windows and the radiant heat from the hearth, it's extremely efficient and cheap (2 cord/year) to heat the main floor of this house. It's not uncommon to arrive home at 4pm after a day of sun and open shades to the main floor of the house cooking at 78, without no fire in the wood stove yet. Naturally the temp starts to plummet by 6:30ish if I don't fire up the stove, so I typically get around to making a fire by 6. Being that the main floor is not huge, and the hearth sitting right in the middle, we do see 85-90 degrees by late night, even after burning with the front dial thing only opened 1/2 inch. Im not complaining, as it's much easier to crack open some windows than pay crazy money for heat.

Half of the basement level, roughly 600 sq ft, is finished, containing a small family room and extra bedroom. It's obviously freezing down there (48-55 in the winter), and I have been using a small space heater to keep it comfortable (65-70).

Now, I also have a forced hot air/AC system, with ductwork running throughout the basement and registers/returns in each room of the main floor, but NO registers or returns in the finished basement whatsoever (was this an oversight??? no idea). I use this forced air system mainly for the air conditioning in the summer, and on rare occasions for heating when my kids aren't comfortable messing with the wood stove and I'm not at home. A guy at work was explaining to me that I may be able to somehow hijack this ductwork and make it work to my advantage by having the ducts circulate the heat for me and distribute it so that it won't be cooking hot upstairs and frozen in the basement. It does have a fan setting, so that makes sense to me, but this would require cutting in some registers in the existing ductwork that runs through the basement, which sounds easy in theory, but since I'm not the handiest girl in the county, it also sounds expensive.

Another method I have seen in houses built similar to mine is a metal fan it the peak of the ceiling nearest the hearth (they are cathedral ceilings, and it feels like Africa if I climb up there) with what I assume is a pipe that goes down down down into the basement and spits out warm air with the flick of a switch. This,too, sounds costly and like it wouldn't be something I could tackle myself.

If anyone in the know can envision my situation and offer my some suggestions, it would be much appreciated.

 

[Woody912]

I have some questions regarding heat circulation. Here are the details: My home is a passive-solar ranch, about 1300 sq ft., having 28 feet of plate window across the front (south facing) side, and only 2 small windows on the rear north side. The house was built with an enclosed hearth in the middle of the main floor, big old Warner wood stove within. Between the large amount of south-facing windows and the radiant heat from the hearth, it's extremely efficient and cheap (2 cord/year) to heat the main floor of this house. It's not uncommon to arrive home at 4pm after a day of sun and open shades to the main floor of the house cooking at 78, without no fire in the wood stove yet. Naturally the temp starts to plummet by 6:30ish if I don't fire up the stove, so I typically get around to making a fire by 6. Being that the main floor is not huge, and the hearth sitting right in the middle, we do see 85-90 degrees by late night, even after burning with the front dial thing only opened 1/2 inch. Im not complaining, as it's much easier to crack open some windows than pay crazy money for heat.

Half of the basement level, roughly 600 sq ft, is finished, containing a small family room and extra bedroom. It's obviously freezing down there (48-55 in the winter), and I have been using a small space heater to keep it comfortable (65-70).

Now, I also have a forced hot air/AC system, with ductwork running throughout the basement and registers/returns in each room of the main floor, but NO registers or returns in the finished basement whatsoever (was this an oversight??? no idea). I use this forced air system mainly for the air conditioning in the summer, and on rare occasions for heating when my kids aren't comfortable messing with the wood stove and I'm not at home. A guy at work was explaining to me that I may be able to somehow hijack this ductwork and make it work to my advantage by having the ducts circulate the heat for me and distribute it so that it won't be cooking hot upstairs and frozen in the basement. It does have a fan setting, so that makes sense to me, but this would require cutting in some registers in the existing ductwork that runs through the basement, which sounds easy in theory, but since I'm not the handiest girl in the county, it also sounds expensive.

Another method I have seen in houses built similar to mine is a metal fan it the peak of the ceiling nearest the hearth (they are cathedral ceilings, and it feels like Africa if I climb up there) with what I assume is a pipe that goes down down down into the basement and spits out warm air with the flick of a switch. This,too, sounds costly and like it wouldn't be something I could tackle myself.

If anyone in the know can envision my situation and offer my some suggestions, it would be much appreciated.

When it hits -20 I put a small desk fan in the hallway to move air back to my bedroom. Almost any way you can find to move air to your basement will help including just pointing it down the stairs. I vent my dryer into the basement when it is really cold, why waste the heat?

 

[zogger]

Any HVAC guy should be able to do another run to the basement, then use your existing blower to circulate the air around. No idea what that would cost in your area though.

Now with your description of a straight shot from your top[ of ceiling right down to the basement, maybe a stand alone piece of duct would work with something like a squirrel cage fan. I guess you would want it to look decent, more finished than raw ductwork.

You seem to have figured out both your options well already. There's no easy cheap way to get hot air to go down, has to be moved mechanically.

 

[svk]

First of all, welcome to the site. Secondly it sounds like you have a very efficient setup, please share pictures if you are able. I would also suggest a fan or two to move the air around. Or as Zogger suggested you could plumb a vent into your existing system.

 

[hopm]

My wood stove is under a hood that feeds into a trunk line that goes into the duct work. I have a separate t-stat on my air handler that allows me to turn off my heat pump and run the air handler through the entire house.

 

[Stacey]

To hopm, something similar to what you describe was suggested to me. I'm not sure what a t-stat is but I will read up on it. Are you basically saying that you have a similar FHA heat/cooling system, but you steal the stove heat to feed through your system and use the fan to just circulate it??

svk, I have installed a small corner fan in the doorway that leads from the parlor/kitchen/dining into the hallway where the bedrooms are; this keeps the kids bedrooms at a nice temp, 74-78, although too hot for me to sleep. I'm the one sleeping in the basement bedroom, which suits me fine since I prefer cooler temps to sleep.....but 48 is on the cool side, even for me. The electric space heater does the job, however I'm nervous running it at night while I'm asleep, even with 7 smoke detectors in the house.

Woody I hear you with the dryer vent heat. I had one of those vent-in-house thingies when I lived in a condo and it really did help recycle the dryer heat, plus my family room smelled like Downy. Win-win.

As far as having a vent installed, straight run down from the ceiling peak into the cellar, the guy I spoke to about that gave me an entire physics lesson on moving air, explaining that it's not enough to simply push the hot air down, but to create a system where cold air from the basement is somehow circulated back up and out. I'm a nurse and this is not my department But, I loosely grasp what he was trying to explain.

 

[Stacey]

This view is of the large span of windows across the front of the parlor/main room of house. The front bedroom has the identical window configuration. Fantastic for that passive solar heat, but a real pain to treat with blinds or curtains so you don't feel as though you're in a fishbowl to people driving by.

 

[hopm]

The wood heat is pulled into the duct system by the air handler. The regular thermostat for the heat pump is moved to the off position. There is a separate thermostat that is only on the air handler and controls the temp when the wood stove is used. Hope this makes it a bit clearer for you. This lets me use the heat pump in milder temps and shut down the cold temp energy cost.

 

[MountainHigh]

Zogger has the idea - a couple of larger cold air returns placed strategically in the area of warmest air, should work to move some of that hot air into vents in the basement. A Fan/blower switch that doesn't trigger the furnace would be needed. Duct work is not expensive unless you have to start ripping out walls and ceilings.

3 quotes from 3 honest furnace guys should give you a better idea of what you're up against in money.

If it turns out that working with the venting in your existing system is too costly, maybe look at a small wood stove in basement, as long as you can open windows down there as well as have a clear path to get the hot air upstairs.

High level cold air returns can recirculate hot air from ceiling level.

http://www.woodheat.org/move-heat-around.html

 

[Woody912]

or she could cut a round hole in the floor, weld an iron pipe to the stove running all the way to the basement and have radiant heat rather than convective. I think we call this the Hilljack method. On a more serious note, if you can push cold air out of your basement upstairs you will pull warm air from upstairs. Assuming you don't have a window open it is a zero sum game

 

[svk]

Great looking place, we had a house with a vaulted ceiling and big south facing windows once. You are right, heater doesn't run all day. Luckily we had big shade trees to cover them in the summer too.

 

[Stacey]

Assuming there were no open windows, if I used a large fan, as in the diagram, pushing the basement air towards the hot upstairs, provided there were an In and Out vent, it's going to basically mix the hot and cold air together and whirl it around, eventually making it normal temperature all around. If I just had an Out, with one duct pushing the hot air downstairs, would it not work at all, or just not as well?

The real hot point where I see lots of wasted heat is right within the hearth. If you are able to see in the pictures, at the far end of hearth is a large cutout area, built for firewood to be stored of course, but it houses shoes, boots and backpacks now. Footwear is always hot and toasty. But the hearth goes all the way up to the ceiling, and lots of heat ends up trapped up inside there. I could probably throw a pan of brownie mix up on a shelf near those shoes and in 30 minutes have dessert. It's that hot.

Yes, svk, it's certainly a cheap home to heat. Downside is that I have no trees on the south side, so air conditioning tends to run high when temps reach 90-100 in summer. The house came equipped with those giant mattress-looking quilted shades built over all of the windows on rollers, but they were original from 1982 and heavily damaged by smoke and pets from previous owners. It would cost me a considerably large amount of money to replace that type of shade. But overall, I'm happy with the efficiency.

 

[MountainHigh]

Assuming there were no open windows, if I used a large fan, as in the diagram, pushing the basement air towards the hot upstairs, provided there were an In and Out vent, it's going to basically mix the hot and cold air together and whirl it around, eventually making it normal temperature all around. If I just had an Out, with one duct pushing the hot air downstairs, would it not work at all, or just not as well?

Ya, I believe you need a circulating path to *really make the air move - an IN and an OUT from the basement, because you are basically fighting the natural convection of heat wanting to rise. Be sure to drag several heating guys into your home to have a hands on look and $ estimate - they may see something we don't and there might be a cheap and easy way to create an IN and an OUT perhaps with fans at both locations, without the expense of tying into your existing duct work.

 

[tawilson]

If you have supply and return ducts in the areas you want to move heat too, it should not be a big deal to cut in some grills with dampers and use the furnace fan to circulate. Don't you have a tinknocker buddy somewhere that could take a look?

 

[sb47]

I have a single story home, so no need to push air up stairs.
I found and old outside central AC compressor that has the big fan on the top to draw air through the coils.
I built a box and made a box fan out of it.
Back

Front

I have it set on the lowest setting and it moves lots of air and is whisper quiet.
I set it to the side of the stove and it pushes hot air throughout the house.

 

[sb47]

One day when I fine some free paint, I'll paint it. lol

 

[sb47]

Makes a great summer shop fan too.
Keeping my eyes out for a round fan screen for the front.
I through the old one away, never expecting to make a fan out of it.
It was something I had laying around but never through out.

 

[Woody912]

Rube Goldbergish but if her heating area is that hot an inverted bathroom vent fan behind the stove blowing to the basement might work. All depends on $$ and aesthetics

 

[Stacey]

Most of these solutions make sense to me. I want to thank you all for chiming in to help me.
I connected with a worker from the HVAC company that happened to be dealing with heat at the nursing home where I work. He is suggesting a loop, with an intake at the hottest point and a return, but he suggests it may be done with dryer vent tubing and a bathroom exhaust fan...making it inexpensive and more versatile to wind through where I need to to go.
I will post pics when this does come to fruition. For now all of my houseplants are turning into kindling and my hair is straw

 

[Woody912]

Most of these solutions make sense to me. I want to thank you all for chiming in to help me.
I connected with a worker from the HVAC company that happened to be dealing with heat at the nursing home where I work. He is suggesting a loop, with an intake at the hottest point and a return, but he suggests it may be done with dryer vent tubing and a bathroom exhaust fan...making it inexpensive and more versatile to wind through where I need to to go.
I will post pics when this does come to fruition. For now all of my houseplants are turning into kindling and my hair is straw

Sounds like a good plan.If your stove has a flat top, keeping multiple teapots or whatever on top will help your dry air somewhat. I boil off about 5 gallons of H2O/ day during maple syrup season just doing normal heating but it does help the house somewhat and I get syrup for nothing