Moving Heat

I have six rooms downstairs and three rooms upstairs. The rooms downstairs are divided by one doorway. The half of the house with the stove in is very warm, but the three rooms on the other side do not get that warm. Ant suggestions on how to get the heat to circulate. I'm new to heating with a stoker.

I'm going to move this to the Venting, chimneys, etc forum.. for better exposure to those who can answer your questions..

There are MANY topic on this subject, take a look through the Venting, etc forum and you will find several threads on distributionof heat, ducting hot air , ducting cold air returns etc..

Greg L

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Think "moving cold air". It's easier to move cold air. Once the cold air is moved out of the way and back toward the heat source, the hot air will replace it .... won't it

I don't understand what you mean by moving cold air back to the heat source, which is a Alaska stoker. The room the stoker is in is separated by a doorway, how do I circulate the cold air back to the stoker?

Well, you need a "loop". You can't just jamb hot air into a room, without having a path for some of the cooler air to move out at the same time. So you have to send the cooler air to where the warm air originated. A forced hot air system has both hot air ducts, as well as cold air returns. Their common point is the furnace.

If it's a door way, the warm air is going in the top, the cold coming back the bottom. To make it better you can do two things, make the air move easier, or make the air move faster. Easier is done by cutting holes, faster is done with fans. Sometimes both is the answer.

Dallas and Fready, thanks for the info. My house is about 90year sold with plaster walls so I don't want to start making holes yet. I did buy to small fans at the local hardware I have attached one on the top of the doorway pushing the warm air in the other on the bottom of the doorway pushing the the cool air out. I'll try this for a couple of day's and see if it helps. Thanks again.

Try the fans in different locations and blowing in different directions. At the same time, keep in mind that the heat will be moving near the ceiling and the cold air will be moving near the floor. If you have the fans on the floor, think "moving cold air". Also, as I said, "cold air moves easier, as it's more dense".

If you add a floor great to the room that is the farest away.
And put a 6 " inline fan in 6 " duct and bring that duct back to the stoker.
You will automaticly carry the hot air to that room
Some time the little door mounted fan are not enough.
Doug

This is a good thread on this topic: Good Air Circulation

Greg L

I have a few friends that I used to work with who bought stoker's the last couple of years due to the price of oil. When I asked them if the house was warm they all said yes and it was a lot cheaper than oil, none mentioned about duck work and moving cold air. I thought I could just buy a coal stove and the heat would travel through the house. Well you guys sound like you all know what your talking about, and I have all winter to experiment with moving the cold air back to the source. Thanks for all the help I have a much better understanding now.

Years back when I was burning wood I cut a 8" by 12" hole near the ceiling on one side of a bedroom and cut an inch off the bottom of the door. It did the trick!

I am looking for more help as well.

I have been reading suggestions for what feels like forever. A quick intro is that I have a Alaska Channing III in by basement and 2 living floors above it, altogether maybe 1800 sq feet or so. I was looking to see if it would help at all to have 1 or 2 floor registers in each room, and then to duct some cold air back down to the stove. Right now I only have 2 floor registers total, and have been using the stairwells, and this is not productive at all. I have been going through at least a hopper of coal + a day, and it is 64 deg in 1 room of the first floor and colder on the 2nd floor. I was going to knock 2 floor vents in each room and go from there. Aside from that, if I can't get it figured out I will have to go back to the oil boiler for a while.

My other thoughts for the near future is to buy a power venter and move the stove to the first floor dining room, which I would still need floor vents then to.

commedic81 wrote:quick intro is that I have a Alaska Channing III in by basement and 2 living floors above it,

I think asking any stove to heat 2 floors above it is a losing proposition unless your house is tight as a drum & very well insulated. I heat my split fine, with the stove in the finished basement & many ways for the warm air to get upstairs. If I had another floor above that one, I would need an additional heat source on the colder days.

I think I would be better off moving the stove up to the first floor and out of the basement. I just have to scrape up money for a power venter first before I can do that.