Moving Heat up Stairs

pzou812 wrote:I have still not the answer how did it work for u.

Sorry didn't get the chance to answer you sooner. My experiment is much like ceccil's pic. It does move a lot of air down stairs and greatly helps but it's not enough to keep the area warm. But it's enough to keep the upstairs cooler, so I would say it's working as much as it can be for now. Like in his picture I used a smaller piece in front of the stove in order to not take all the heat away from the room, but a bigger hood for the stove would take a lot more heat from the stove and move it to where I want it.

pzou812 wrote:I don't have a jacket but what if a take out two 2x2 ceiling tiles out right above the stove and put like two 8" flex lines with in line fans in them and suck the heat off the top of the stove.

Is your ceiling in the cellar finished with a drop down ceiling? I know on here people either removed a couple of tiles or replaced them with vents and got more of the heat up in between the tiles and the floor above and where happy with those results. I use a 10 inch in-line duct fan to suck the heat from my stove, the bigger the fan and the duct work is the more amount of air your going to move. If your goal is to move as much as you can the go with the largest you can like this 14" fan http://www.airboosterfans.com/duct-fan.html and build a hood that covers part of the front and top (even sides if need be) and build up from there and bring the heat to where you wish it to be displaced.

The problem I have is the basement is finished and it wouldn't look verry good with a hood and duct work over it but I am sure that would do the job. So I removed one of the 2x2 tiles and put a 6" flex to a close redgister I no 6 " isnt much but I don't have the room between the grid and the floor to get a bigger line. I was thinking about adding another 6" and hope to grab a little more heat off the top of the stove. I no I am not going to get the house even but I would like to circulate the air better thats all.

You can always build a nice looking hood that could be easily removed once the stove is not is use so you wouldn't have to look at it all year round. Something even enough in weight could just sit on the stove and not need to be physically connected to it.

Thats a good idea I was thinking permenant. Ok the million dollar question where do I duct it to. Would it be a central located area like the hallway vent its in the middle of the house or would you bring it to the opposite side. If I was to bring it to the opposite I would have to run like 40 feet of duct it might be to far ?

If you go with a larger duct from the stove to the ceiling you could branch it off to a few different locations. I would think that bringing the heat to the furthest areas away from your stove (and cellar door) would help give a more even heat through out your house. But in all honesty it's going to take some experimenting to figure out what would work best in your house, also if there are areas in which you have plans on resealing or better insulating it would be something to take into consideration.

Sounds like good idea I will give it try thanks for all the feed back

Sounds like good idea I will give it try thanks for all the feed back

Here is my system. It has evolved over the years. I did try inline duct fans, but they are not very effecient (electrically), and a bit noisy. The intake is near the stove, and a Panasonic whisper quiet energy star rated blower transfers the air upsatairs to the bedrooms at the opposite end of the house. I have a ranch home with the stove at one end in the basement. I utilize the staircase to the left of the stove as my return air.

That looks like a nice set up sierra my house is almost the same layout as yours I think everyone has giving me a lot of ideas. The real test is coming with the cold weather on the way. I will take some pics of my setup and post them. I just like to thank everyone for the help and advise. I will keep everyone updated with my progress.

I had the same problem. I bought a Harman Magnum (used) because it was a good deal and because I heard good things about them. It was destined for the basement but numerous people I talked to said "oh, run the built-in duct to the upstairs, leave the basement door open, and the heat that builds up in the basement will in turn heat the floor, and you'll be good to go."

I have an A-frame with a vaulted ceiling, upstairs loft & bedroom. Downstairs there are two bedrooms. The stove is at the corner of the house that is below the living room, so the two downstairs bedrooms are at the opposite end of the house.

I started using the stove when it was not very cold out, just to get used to it. One night when it finally got into the 30's outside, my setup did not do a good enough job. The living room and upstairs bedroom, where me & the wife sleep, were fine -- there's a door to our bedroom that leads out to the loft and when that is open, the heat just pours in from the vaulted ceiling. However, the two downstairs bedrooms where the kids sleep were chilly. When I went in the basement it was downright toasty, which is useless because it is an unfinished basement.

So I set about a project not really knowing if it would work out. My ambition was to surround as much of the stove as I could in a "sleeve" and then duct that into the two downstairs bedrooms. I used flat sheets of duct sheet metal and then insulated the outside. The duct needed to be about 30' so I used insulated 6" flexible ducting. For fans I used two of those "duct booster" fans.

It's not pretty but damn if it doesn't work! It's not perfect, but those bedrooms do stay warm now. In fact, the smaller bedroom gets TOO warm if the door is closed. And the basement doesn't get hot anymore, but just warm enough so you can work down there, do laundry, etc. Whereas in previous winters it'd get uncomfortably chilly.

The one bad thing, however, is that that flexible ducting gives off an odor if the stove is running real hot. I measured the temps of the main duct and duct off my homemade sleeve. When the stove is at max, the main duct reads about 190' and the secondary duct reads about 170' which might be a tad too hot of the flexible stuff. Though I have noticed the odor less and less each time so I think the plastic is slowly "curing". My concern is it will eventually get brittle and crack.

As a final thought...I realize now, I really should have gotten a coal furnace, not a stove, but I didn't really know any better at the time.

FYI. In the picture the shinny duct in the middle comes off the Magnum's built-in duct port. The one on the right comes off my "sleeve" and the one on the left is an intake to the Magnum's distribution blower. I wanted it to suck warm air from the basement ceiling instead of cold air from the floor. Oh, and for my "cold air return", I just removed the seal from the bottom lip of the basement door exposing about a 1/2" gap where the cool air from the upstairs floor pours down the basement steps...

Sounds like a lot of work and expense,after much thought and post reading last year and cringing like scrooge I just fiddled with the oil burners thermostat until it would occasionally run and redistribute heat evenly around the house,the Pioneer did most of the heating work.Used a quarter tank of oil last year and almost 6 ton of coal.Lazy poor mans solution. RichB

I don't know if you were referring to my mods in particular, but in my case, there wasn't much expense. I'm pretty sure it was under $200 for everything (sheets of metal, ducting, fans, duct tape, floor vents, insulation). It did cost me a couple evenings of lost relaxation, but in my house the only other source of heat is baseboard electric which is damned expensive and will be even moreso once the PA rate caps come off in January. For those of you outside PA--our electricity rates were caped by the state for years. When the caps come off here they're expecting the cost of electricity to go up about 30%!

That Harman Magnum is a great stove. But you have baseboard heat per you earlier post. You should be using a coal boiler to heat the water to use the baseboards. This investment will pay itself back rather quickly.

My stove is in the middle of my house and not tied into any duct work. There is a cold air return from the back bedroom into the room the stove is located in which helps circulate the air. Until that was put in, there was serious cold air damming upstairs in that room. Now it gets to about 67 or so which is perfect for me.

Also, we use ceiling fans downstairs to bring the heat off the ceiling. It makes a huge difference in moving the heat around the house. I can tell immediately if one of the fans accidentally gets turned off because the heat simply stops moving around. We keep them set on low.