How Do You Distribute Heat From Your Stove?

I have a Harman TLC2000 in the basement family room of my 44' raised ranch &, even though we live in Mass, it heats the whole house.
Over the years, I have tried to perfect the heat distribution in the house so that all rooms are fairly consistant temperature-wise. My home has a forced warm air (by natural gas) heating system that is only used on very cold mornings to "jumpstart" the heat when we first get up & b4 I turn up the Harman.

Here are a few of my improvisations:

1. While the stairway acts as pretty effective chimney bringing warm air upstairs, I have also cut a few floor vents in the bedroom floors to help move warm air around.
2. I have thermometers scattered all around the house to check temp distribution.
3. I installed a fairly powerful, yet quiet bathroom exhaust fan directly above the Harman ( suspended ceiling in the fam room) that connects into the main heat plenum & allows the coal stove heat to trickle through my whole duct system. (it has a one way gate that stops air from backing into it when the regular heat kicks on). I make sure that both the regular heat & the vent fan are not on at the same time) I only turn this fan on when it gets very cold out, but the vent allows some heat to find it's way into the main ducts all the time.
4. I have an egg-crate panel in the suspended ceiling under the upstairs bathroom that allows warm air to get trapped under the flloor & does a nice job of keeping the bathroom floor warm.
By keeping a basment window (near the coalstove) open a crack, the family room does not get to warm.(the window visible in the pic I posted on page 11 of the General Questions forum/Pictures of my stove thread )
Another $$ saving device (my kids hate........I have 3 girls) is the clothes line I have in the basment to hang clothes & let them dry from the heat of the Harman. (What usually happens is there is a rush to use the electric clothes dryer when dad leaves for work!)

Love to hear any other ideas.

Devil5052 wrote:Love to hear any other ideas.

Take the dryer cord to work with you.

If you install a 4" or 6" duct from the cold air return trunk to the inlet of the distribution blower of the Harman, you will complete a circulation loop that will allow a much better distribution of heated air.

Greg L

Thanks for the tip LsFarm but the cold air return plenum is pretty far from the stove & the regular furnace is used so infrequently that I don't want to rely on its fan anyway.. I figure that the heat is distibuted pretty well anyway, even without using the duct system. (I just added the bath fan to the duct system last year as it was cheap to do, costs next to nohing to run & figured it couldn't hurt!)

Hi 5052, you don't use the furnace fan, you use the distribution fan on the Harman. Just like you let the hot air mosey on out the hot air duct, put a slight suction on the cold air return the same way. You will be amazed at how much of a difference it will make.

Right now you are pulling cold air off the basement floor, the coldest air in the house, and running it through the stove. If you reheat air pulled from the upstairs rooms instead, you will get much more effecient use of the stove. This is what forced air furnaces do, they have sealed ducts on the furnace, only heating recirculated air.

One forum member had cut holes, added ducts, added duct fans etc, and still was unhappy with the heat distribution. Then he added a simple floor register in a distant part of the house, hooked this to the inlet of the distribution fan of his stove, and imediately had much more heat and more even distribution. He used inexpensive 4" dryer vent tubing!! Nothing fancy!1 The loop-effect is what works.


Hope this makes sense.

Greg L.

Not sure what you are saying LsFarm..........My Harman stove does not have the distribution fan option as I have never felt I needed it. Where the return air duct is about 25' away from the stove (while the warm air duct is right above) would I really be better off trying to force the stove heat the 25' into the cold air return?( I figured the warm air would find its way out of the floor registers above once I got it into the main plenum with just the little bath vent fan I have hooked up) I'm open to any ideas though!

I'm not familiar with the TLC, I went to the Harman stoves site and it wasn't there in the coal stoves. I found it in the wood/coal section.

So if your TLC is without a distribution fan to circulate air over the stove's surfaces, then it is a radiant stove. Without a circulation fan, my return air duct would be worthless.

I thought the TLC stoves had fans like the Harman Mark series and most other stoves. If it doesn't then I'd think you would get a great deal more heat off the stove with a fan moving the hot air.. If there is a fan option, it might be something to consider

Sorry for the confusion.

Greg L

The TLC. stove should have a 135 C.F.M. Blower on it
http://www.harmanstoves.com/specifications.asp?id=7

I do believe that Harman makes a fan that connects to the back of the TLC2000 & will blow stove heated air across the top of the stove & out though the vents but I think my setup (I have the stove in a corner of the family room with a suspended ceiling above) circulates the warm air adequitly & I have always liked the idea that I don't have to use any electricity to move the air around. (obviously the bath vent fan I hooked up last year will use a minor amount of electricity (when in use) but I figured it would be worth it to get the stove-warmed air above the suspended ceiling & into the main ducts for it to find its way out of the floor registers above) I have measured a few degree temp rise at these floor registers when the fan is on. (I think I just enjoy the tinkering around & make it like a wintertime hobby!)
BTW- I have posted a pic of my setup in the General Questions forum on page 11 of the "Pictures of your stove" thread.

coal berner wrote:The TLC. stove should have a 135 C.F.M. Blower on it
http://www.harmanstoves.com/specifications.asp?id=7

That was an option (like the brass plated door) that I didn't go with when I bought mine 3 years ago. Think it would be worth the electricity trade-off since I really don't need to project the heat laterally (in the basment) but need to get it (the heat) upstairs?

Devil5052 wrote:

coal berner wrote:The TLC. stove should have a 135 C.F.M. Blower on it
http://www.harmanstoves.com/specifications.asp?id=7

That was an option (like the brass plated door) that I didn't go with when I bought mine 3 years ago. Think it would be worth the electricity trade-off since I really don't need to project the heat laterally (in the basment) but need to get it (the heat) upstairs?

I can see your point but the fan does more then Just Push the air around it also helps Keep the stove Temp down so less chance of over heating the stove

coal berner wrote:

Devil5052 wrote:

coal berner wrote:The TLC. stove should have a 135 C.F.M. Blower on it
http://www.harmanstoves.com/specifications.asp?id=7

That was an option (like the brass plated door) that I didn't go with when I bought mine 3 years ago. Think it would be worth the electricity trade-off since I really don't need to project the heat laterally (in the basment) but need to get it (the heat) upstairs?

I can see your point but the fan does more then Just Push the air around it also helps Keep the stove Temp down so less chance of over heating the stove

I am careful to avoid the chance of overheating my stove coal berner(mainly to save $$$$).............I find that keeping the stove real low (150-200 degrees stack temp) works just fine (usualy........hopefully) through December & then I crank it up in January-Feb as needed but never run it above 400 degrees except when starting/loading it when I have occasionaly red-lined it to about 475 degrees for just a few minutes.

Without the distribution fan you are letting a lot of heat go up the chimney. The fan will wash a lot of heat off the stove body and drop your stack temps too.

If it were my stove, my next accessory would be a fan.

Greg L

Can you install more egg crate panels like you did under the bathroom. I think the drop ceiling is holding down some heat. Try taking some panels down then cut a 2 " or 3" slice off with a razon knife or cut the corners off then put them back up . Now you have a passage for the heat to get under the floor easier

japar wrote:Can you install more egg crate panels like you did under the bathroom. I think the drop ceiling is holding down some heat. Try taking some panels down then cut a 2 " or 3" slice off with a razon knife or cut the corners off then put them back up . Now you have a passage for the heat to get under the floor easier

Good idea japar but here is the trade-off:
The coalstove is located in the basement family room (in the far left corner of the house) directly under the bedrooms. The kitchen, living & dining rooms are located at the opposite side of the house on the other side oif the central stairway. While I do have another egg crate (centraly located in the family room) I don't want to much heat being trapped just under the bedrooms. I am trying to acheive a path for the heated stove air to find its way through the family room & basement hall to the stairway where it will lift up into the other rooms.