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

[HawkinsHollow]

I honestly think the situation can be different for lots of scenarios. I am looking for what you do and why, also, I'd like to get your opinion on my scenario. Here is my situation. The room our wood stove is going to go in is 12x25 with a vaulted ceiling about 12' at the peak. The wood stove will be almost centered on that tall wall. To the left of the stove about 10 feet is our kitchen that is an open wall with a cabinet and counter in about 2/3rds of it. There is a ceiling fan on both sides of the room with the woodstove almost centered between them but a couple feet closer the left side. My goal is to get as much of that heat to rest of the house, past the kitchen as possible. So the heat will convect up above the stove, part of my thinking is if I put the fans on a low blow it will set up a nice convection current, creating some good mixing. My other thought is if I put them blowing up then that air would move along the ceiing, hit the wall and follow it down where it would hit the counter and bounce towards the kitchen. Does it matter? Am i just going to have to experiment when I get it in and see which works best?

 

[Hughman]

We usually blow down in the summer and up in the winter.

 

[HawkinsHollow]

Yes, and I think that will be the general consensus. And I get not wanting to blow potentially cold air down on someone relaxing on the couch. But I feel like there are times where blowing down might be advantageous, maybe?

 

[jk96]

Our living room is 26ft to the vaulted ceiling. We def get more air movement down, tstat upstairs in the open loft stays slightly cooler down then up. Just have to figure out if the air movement down is comfortable or not for you in the winter.

 

[Milo]

Same here down in summer and up in winter. It was explained to me as air blowing down directly on you offers a cooling effect from moisture on your clothes and skin evaporating. In heating season, heat rises to the ceiling and fans blowing air up don't blow directly on you, instead gently push that warm air out from the ceiling and down the walls.

 

[Mtsoxfan]

I wouldn't want air blowing on me in the winter, it would feel like I'm sitting in a drafty area, even with warm air. If air isn't moving to where you want it, there are corner fans, small, about 6" that you mount in the corner of a doorway to push air.
In your set up, I feel the fans blowing down would cause air disturbance, convection up meeting convection down. The result may be worse warm air circulation.

 

[CalG]

Down high to get the warmth spread all around (windy though)

Up on slow just to keep the peak from hogging all the warm air.

 

[WinterDeere]

We have the one directly above the stove pulling up, and the one at the far end of the room pushing down. Creates a nice circulation loop in a long room with 14 ft. ceilings.

They're kept running on the lowest setting pretty-much year-round.

 

[ruffdog]

My home is open through the LR,DR, and K with the woodstove in the LR. The other half of the house is cooler which is fine for the BRs. On very cold days, I'll have a small fan blowing cool air down the hallway from the BRs at floor level. That helps the warm air at the ceiling to get to the other side of the house. I also have a cold air return right above the woodstove so the furnace blower will circulate the air.

 

[dmccarty]

Our ceiling is 10 feet tall. We have run the ceiling fan up to move around the heat from the wood stove but don't anymore. Even the slowest fan setting would move the air which was not comfortable. We have a single story house and the heat moves from the warm side of the house, i.e., from the wood stove. to the cool side of the house via convection.

Interestingly, I was watching a YouTube video yesterday that was showing an centuries old townhouse in London. One of the things that caught my eye was they had built a thin, wood paneling over the opening for the stairs on of the floors. The panel had two doors, one for going up a level and the other was for going down stairs. I think they did this for noise but also to keep the warm air in the room(s) on that floor instead of going up the stairwell to the next floor.