Ceiling Fans Blowing Up or Down In Room With Wood Stove?

[WinterDeere]

Our stove is in our basement.

What stove, and do you have any exposed concrete? Most modern stoves accomplish a large part (majority?) of their heat transfer via radiation, which if in the presence of any exposed concrete tied to earth, just gets gobbled up and sunk into the earth. But throw up some insulated wall board and lay down carpet on a pad to shield the concrete from that radiation, and you have a pretty good chance of most of that energy finding its way upstairs!

Even highly-convective stoves still push a lot of their energy out via radiation, thru the front viewing glass. But at least in the case of those stoves, you only need to make sure the wall the stove is facing is insulated, not all sides as with a common cast iron stove.

 

[HawkinsHollow]

Our stove is in our basement. Not optimal for the upstairs. I ended up putting a duct above the stove and running a length of 8" flexible duct across the basement ceiling to a heat register in the living room. Then I put a high temperature duct booster fan in the duct. Finished it off with a greenhouse fan thermostat set to cool.

When the temp in the basement gets up to 78, the fan comes on and blows warm air up to the living room. After the fire goes out and the room gets down to 74, the fan shuts off. Works pretty well..

That sound like a good little system. I am not judging you, I am genuinely curious. Why do people put wood stoves in the basement? There must be some good reasons, because plenty of people do it. Space, cleanliness, heat rises, etc. For us, our wood stove is as much aesthetic as it is for heating. But living in SE TN we can have that luxury. For you yankees I know wood stoves can be all about business.

 

[ruffdog]

, I am genuinely curious. Why do people put wood stoves in the basement? There must be some good reasons, because plenty of people do it.

When I was a kid, we had a wood burner that had a blower and it connected to the furnace ducts. Being that the house was old we went through a bunch of wood. We would chuck the wood into the basement through the little coal window which was easy enough. Then we would sweep up and stack the wood so the mess stayed down there. Yes, heat rises but blowing the heat through the ducts is what heated the house.

 

[gstrom99]

I finally put a factory style adjustable blower fan on my Avalon, in the back to blow out the front. Ceiling fan blows down, both summer and winter 'cuz I'm too lazy to change it. I don't think it makes any difference, as long as it's moving air around.

 

[MossRoad]

That sound like a good little system. I am not judging you, I am genuinely curious. Why do people put wood stoves in the basement? There must be some good reasons, because plenty of people do it. Space, cleanliness, heat rises, etc. For us, our wood stove is as much aesthetic as it is for heating. But living in SE TN we can have that luxury. For you yankees I know wood stoves can be all about business.

The reasons we put it in the basement are:
- No place to put it on the first floor. The living room is 12 x 24. It would cook us out of there
- Wood is inherently dirty. I didn't want to be hauling it through the house all winter.
- The basement has an outside stairway entrance with cellar doors right next to the stove.
- I can keep 5-6 days worth of firewood with heavy usage in a rack inside the basement, and 3 weeks worth in the stairs. So about 4 weeks worth indoors.
- The stove is directly under two bedrooms. The floors stay nice and warm with no venting required.
- In our case, it was the least intrusive place to install it.

Besides the duct over the stove that will take heat to the living room on the first floor, I put a 120V muffin fan in the rafter bay that's over the stove above a cement wall that separates both halves of the basement (original foundation wall). That is on the same thermostat. It does a good job of moving warm air into the other half of the basement.

 

[MossRoad]

We found that while yes, heat rises, it won't go up the open stairs by itself. The reason is that there is cold air trying to go down the stairs that blocks the hot air from rising up the stairs. By turning on the ceiling fan on the first floor, it breaks up the air block and heat transfers better.

 

[ponytug]

Personally, I am looking forward to a heat pump system just to be able to circulate a tiny bit of air, quietly, at all times.

It is fun to see how creative you have gotten in maximizing the captured heat from your wood stoves. It brings back great memories of heating with wood.

All the best,

Peter

 

[MossRoad]

Personally, I am looking forward to a heat pump system just to be able to circulate a tiny bit of air, quietly, at all times.

It is fun to see how creative you have gotten in maximizing the captured heat from your wood stoves. It brings back great memories of heating with wood.

All the best,

Peter

Now that I've had back surgery, I won't be splitting the same as I used to. I had some rounds that were 3' in diameter. I'd build a ramp out of split wood and roll them up onto the splitter by hand, then halve them. Then quarter, etc... I'll never be doing that again.

I also used to make a table out of rounds on cut ends next to the splitter, then use the tractor bucket to set rounds on the table and slide them across to the splitter. Even that sounds rough, now.

So I'm thinking of getting a truck bed crane and mounting it on the splitter. Then just one cylinder that will lift up and down. A length of cable with lifting tongs. Then I can dump rounds next to the splitter, use the tongs to lift them up onto the table, split and repeat. Anything too heavy to lift by hand will be grabbed by the tongs. We'll see how it goes.

Really, an engine hoist crane would work just fine but a truck crane can pivot.

 

[ponytug]

Now that I've had back surgery, I won't be splitting the same as I used to. I had some rounds that were 3' in diameter. I'd build a ramp out of split wood and roll them up onto the splitter by hand, then halve them. Then quarter, etc... I'll never be doing that again.

I also used to make a table out of rounds on cut ends next to the splitter, then use the tractor bucket to set rounds on the table and slide them across to the splitter. Even that sounds rough, now.

So I'm thinking of getting a truck bed crane and mounting it on the splitter. Then just one cylinder that will lift up and down. A length of cable with lifting tongs. Then I can dump rounds next to the splitter, use the tongs to lift them up onto the table, split and repeat. Anything too heavy to lift by hand will be grabbed by the tongs. We'll see how it goes.

Really, an engine hoist crane would work just fine but a truck crane can pivot.

Sorry about your back.

Add a log lift to your splitter? Or an infeed table? Personally, I love using the PT bucket as lift/table for large rounds and logs.

I try to spare my back whenever I can, and the PT is such a great force multiplier for me.

All the best, Peter

 

[MossRoad]

Sorry about your back.

Add a log lift to your splitter? Or an infeed table? Personally, I love using the PT bucket as lift/table for large rounds and logs.

I try to spare my back whenever I can, and the PT is such a great force multiplier for me.

All the best, Peter

The problem with a log lift as I see it, is that let's say I mount it on the right side. Now I have to get all my wood on the right side of the splitter all the time. And if a large piece would fall off the left side, I'd have to figure out how to get it to the right side again.

I suppose I could build a table. But my splitter pushes the log through the wedge. So the splits end up past the wedge when they fall apart. So on a large round, there's a piece on each side of the wedge after the first split. I then have to decide which one to slide back to the beam and either slide the other one to the side or let the next split push it out of the way, then figure out how to get it back to the beam again.

I figure with tongs, I can let the two halves fall, grab either one with the tongs, lift it back on the beam and repeat.

Money bet says I'll do neither and just pay the gas bill this winter.