Cold Air Return Hookup

I already have my Pioneer's combustion blower hooked up to a fresh air intake from outside and was thinking of teeing into my existing cold air return on my furnace to the convection blower on my pioneer. Would this help distribute the heat better in my house?. I have 2 cold air returns one in the living room and in the bedroom which is supper cold like 8* to 10* colder. The stove is located in the kitchen and my bedroom is next to it so i installed a wall fan 8" through the wall above the pioneer into the bedroom which helps but thought hooking up to the cold air return on our furnace would help even more. If so what size piping would be OK i can fit a 5" collar over the convection fan housing. Would 3" ducting work? i don't want to drill a 5" hole through the hearth its a pain i already have a 3 1/4 hole saw to run 3" duct would 3" duct restrict the airflow to the convection blower?..

I gather your furnace is downstairs and your coal stove is upstairs? If so you might want to look into "muffin fans" small little 6 to 8 inch air circulator fans that can quietly move a lot of warm from a hot room to a cold room by mounting them in a doorway not pretty but very good at evening the heat in rooms.
If your stove was downstairs in the basement I would just tell you to crank it a bit and let it heat the floor because if you feet are warm you are warm.
For years I heated a huge farm house with 2 woodstoves upstairs and it was hot as hell in rooms stoves were in but cold eveywhere else till I started using window fans to circulate and it helped a lot .
But the thing that helped to most was a large stove in the basement and it was a lot warmer and more even heat and I used a lot less wood.
Now I have progressed to a large wood /coal furnace burning coal and it is a warm as I want it to be all the way to 90 if i like. This is hooked in conjunction with a existing hot air oil furnace

Yes the furnace is downstairs and coal stoker is in the kitchen. It does a great job heating all the rooms other than the bedroom even when i had my wood stove i had the same problem with the bedroom.Yea i tried those doorfans they really didn't do much so i put this in the wall seems to help its a few feet above the stoker and connects the kitchen to bedroom..http://www.suncourt.com/ThruWall208.html .Its hard to get heat around the corner to the bedroom so i thought hooking into the cold air return might help.

I wonder if you had your fan mounted high in the wall drawing very warm and another vent or register mounted low in the same wall if it would help create a good circulation just by warm air rising and cooler air falling creating a movment causing the cooler air to return to stove room to be replaced by warm stove room air like the cold air return on your furnace.
Maybe it was on here somplace I saw a drawing showing something like that.
Some hot air furnaces have a "summer circulation switch" on the fan that might let you see if using the fan side of you furnace to circulate air to equal tempratures from hot n cold spots in the house

The cold air return would be too big and draw air from everywhere, including the furnace.

I would try an experiment of hooking up a temporary 6 inch line across the floor from the convection fan to the far corner of the bedroom. If it worked, I would hide it under the floor. Then I would test the other end of the house.

Another experiment would be to remove the convection fans from the pioneer, instead hook the connection into the the cold air return, reversing the flow of air through the coal stove. Block the Normal cold air returns, and as TimV said, turn on the furnace fan, on it's lowest setting. This would suck air out of the warmest room and circulate to all rooms.

TimV wrote:I wonder if you had your fan mounted high in the wall drawing very warm and another vent or register mounted low in the same wall if it would help create a good circulation just by warm air rising and cooler air falling creating a movment causing the cooler air to return to stove room to be replaced by warm stove room air like the cold air return on your furnace.
Maybe it was on here somplace I saw a drawing showing something like that.
Some hot air furnaces have a "summer circulation switch" on the fan that might let you see if using the fan side of you furnace to circulate air to equal tempratures from hot n cold spots in the house

Yea i thought of that one high which i have that sucks warm air in and add another one lower to blow out to the kitchen.. I'm not to sure about the summer circulation switch i don't see any thing on the furnace maybe on the circuit board its about a 4 year old propane furnace only used it a few times.I would like to try another wall through fan mounted lower but my wife will probably have a hissy.. I had a hard enough time convincing her to let me install the one..

xackley wrote:The cold air return would be too big and draw air from everywhere, including the furnace.

I would try an experiment of hooking up a temporary 6 inch line across the floor from the convection fan to the far corner of the bedroom. If it worked, I would hide it under the floor. Then I would test the other end of the house.

Another experiment would be to remove the convection fans from the pioneer, instead hook the connection into the the cold air return, reversing the flow of air through the coal stove. Block the Normal cold air returns, and as TimV said, turn on the furnace fan, on it's lowest setting. This would suck air out of the warmest room and circulate to all rooms.

I don't use the furnace at all so maybe i could just run my venting directly to the cold air return for the bedroom. Or just put a small grate in the corner of the bedroom and run it to the convection of the pioneer..

Hummmm
And all these years I thought it was just my wife who always had a fit over every little hole I cut or wall I knocked out.
I am still thinking I have seen a place where they did have a vent at the top and bottom of a wall to circulate the heat...It will come to me eventually..by spring anyway

I am still thinking I have seen a place where they did have a vent at the top and bottom of a wall to circulate the heat.

I think Devil had a link to one in one of his threads he started. You might want to look there.


Edit; You talking about this? New Distribution Vent 3rd post down.

i have a leisure line pocono back vent in my cellar with 2 pipes off the top of the stove running to 2 vents in my living room and dining room the stove is in the middle of cellar and i leave the cellar door open as my cold air return but i don't think the heat in the cellar is rising good i was thinking about putting a vent in my front room and drop the pipe to my cellar floor from the vent would that work to get the heat to rise better thanks steve