Improving Circulation/heating in house

[KTurner]

We had a heat pump installed about 18 months ago and have a wood stove. We're running into a new issue this year while trying to use the wood stove. We have a 11 month old baby and have to shut the bedroom door while the baby is napping, twice a day for 1-2 hours each, and at night for 3-4 hours (until we go to bed). The thermostat in the hall will say 75 and the bedroom will be 5-10 degrees cooler after having the door shut for 3-4 hours. This is with the air handler fan set to constant circulate mode. I was expecting better than that from the circulate mode. The manual for the air handler (goodman AEPF4260c) says that it only runs the fan at 30% in circulate mode. I haven't checked the dip switches, but the manual says the fan should be pushing 1000-1200CFM at full. The air return is in the ceiling between the bedroom door and thermostat. Even after opening the door, it takes hours for the temp to increase a few degrees in the bedroom. There are two floor vents on the wall away from the bedroom door, one along the wall by the door and one in the bathroom. If we leave the woodstove off and rely on the heat pump, the temp in the bedroom is closer to the temp in the hall. It's a 25 yr old brick house and the temps have been 30s-40s with a few nights dropping in the 20s.

If I want to use the woodstove, I need to find a way to run the air handler fan at a higher speed or come up with some alternative way to circulate the air in order to keep the bedroom from getting too cold. Any suggestions?

Keith

 

[uglyboywith11fingers]

I have much the same issue... high efficiency gas furnace in a 44 year-old (not so well insulated) brick 2-storey house.
With the wood-burning fireplace insert burning and the furnace circ fan on, even on high, the air coming from hot-air registers in 2nd floor bedrooms is only about 72F, not high enough to maintain a decent temp. On the main floor where the t-stat is located, the temp stays reasonably close to 72F, but upstairs rooms stay around 64F. As the outside temp gets lower, the furnace runs a bit more often and the upstairs temp comes up a bit.
Wife has decreed that if using the fireplace means the upstairs stays cold, then the fireplace stays off.

What to do ???

 

[vwnotrunning]

I have a seperate in line fan that draws air from the room with the wood stove and dumps the warm air into the bedrooms. It helps the wood stove is in a room with a high ceiling that allow the heated air to rise up to the fan inlet. The heat pushes into the bedrooms and even raises the hallway enough to keep the furnace off when you keep a fire going. I added a remote bulb thermostat so the fan only operates when the wood stove heats the air up to turn on the fan.

Alot of times with the multispeed fan you do not get the air where you really want it unless the system was installed properly and balanced. Do you have individual returns in each room? You may want to block off some of the closer returns to increase the draw in the baby's room. Just don't restrict the air enough to create air flow issues with the heat pump.

 

[Bikewanderer]

Babies' room is cool here. I have a small radiator type heater I leave plugged in with the thermostat set to 75 or so. Then I set the main thermostat in the house lower. Baby can deal with it during the day.

Note this is a two week old. After six months I'm pretty sure you can toss them out in the snow at night and they won't know the difference. Seriously though, kids handle cool temperatures well. I try to keep it warm when they are little, but after they can talk and get out of bed on their own I don't worry any more.

 

[CurlyDave]

The real solution to this is to have an air return installed in the baby's room.

As you have discovered, a room without a return will be cool or cold in winter and hot in summer.

Temporary fix is an electric heater, I think the ones that look like a miniature radiator work pretty well.

 

[Dr Dave]

Most of the time the cold air returns are in the wall near the floor, since heat rises, Can you add a return near the floor in the babys room?

 

[Dr Dave]

Or you could cut a hole in the wall above the door and install a vent grill on each side of the wall, for air to pass. Is door close to floor, maybe you could trim an inch off the bottom of the door?

 

[BIG DOOLEY]

It would be helpful to see a schematic of the furnace electrical.
You might be able to use a relay to run the blower motor on the high speed setting. Some motors have 3 speed settings. The relay could be activated by a seperate thermostat located in that room.
Trimming a small amount off the bottom of the door is also a good way to help improve circulation.
Nothing will be the same as having true heat pumped into the room though.
The extra money spent on electricity to run the furnace fan vs. electricity running a small heater in the room.
We left the door open while the kids napped and let them get used to sleeping with a small amount of noise.
If they can sleep in the car for two hours on a road trip with the radio on they can sleep with the door open?
dirtyoldman is right though,
kids are tough and can handle that temperature.
My parents always kept the house 68 during the day and 62 at night.
Oh
If she really wants the kid to stay warm, it best to let them take a nap with the oldman.

 

[newbury]

Or can you install vents in the door?
/edit - or a "powered register" Amazon.com: powered air vent register

 

[radioman]

fyi I am not an expert - but I seem to think I might understand the physics here. there is to many variables to guess at here . design of house, design of hvac vents, etc. curlydave is right though. you need to evaluate the airflow in the babyroom. in a perfect hvac world - you have equal air coming into the room and equal going out in every room. you also want warm air coming in the coldest spot in the room and return air at top on other side of room. is there a heat register AND air return? where are they located? do you have damper valves? have you played with them to adjust airflow? do the other rooms have air flow control on vents. have you played with it in attempt to adjust air flow?
Your real solution is to look at the air flows.

 

[TCJatko]

This might be the ticket. Expensive, but I think it can be thermostatically controlled.Hotpod electric duct heater installs in existing ductwork, and allows the homeowner to control the temperature of an individual room

 

[murphy1244]

Turn your fan control from auto to on. When you build your fire your temp is exciding your stat setting. I also place a fan in the hallway to move some air.

 

[KTurner]

There's only a single return for the house, in the hallway ceiling right outside the bedroom door. The bedroom has a pocket door, with an inch or so gap above the carpet. I believe the air pathways are sufficient as things work well when using the heat pump. But the air handler runs the fan at up to 3x the speed when the system is in heat pump versus circulate mode. I did have the fan set to on versus the intermittent setting (10 or 15 mins per hour).

The heat source could be adding to the issue. I'm not sure how much the air temp is increased when the air goes through the heat pump. When I use the wood stove, the thermostat in the hallway has said 75, sometimes higher. The thermostat is standard height on the wall about 5 ft from the return which is in the ceiling, so the air being drawn into the return should be hotter than what the thermostat says. It seems like adding a return into the bedroom would increase circulation in that room, but it would be diluting the hot air going into the other return with the cooler air from the new return in the bedroom.

The powered registers may be worth looking into and that's easy to back out if it doesn't work.. Trying to trick the air handler into running the fan higher may also work, but not sure what that would do to my warranty. Not sure about cutting into walls unless I'm pretty confident its a solution.

Keith

 

[clemsonfor]

You want to get the dense cool air on the floor back to the stove. You need to place small desk type fans or any fan really on the floor in the cold area or several on the way to stove room. Have them pushing the cold air toward the stove. The dense cold air will flow along the floor and the hot air will flow back along the ceiling. DO NOT try to blow the hot into a cold room, it does not work, trust me. I can heat my 2500sqft first floor with this method and i have an old seperated type floor plan with rooms and halls. My stove room can be 80F and my bedroom is through 2 doorways around some bends and down a hallway a total of say 60 feet or so walking distance from the stove. It will be 68 in the bedroom which is really to hot for me to sleep. This is in an uninsulated home on a 27F night. Last year all i used was wood heat this year other than my wifes picky parents that cant stand temp swings according to here we have not used any other heat. But when they were there i think they had the heat on a few times cause they have to have it 72-74 all the time and if the wood needs to be reloaded and it fell below 73 it would trip on. Me perosonally i cant really sleep at that temp in the wintertime. The bedrooms on the side they stay on rarely fall below 72 anyway and often hit 76 outside them in the hall. My mom has to close her door and open the windows when she stays at my house in the winter if the stove is on!!

 

[Deere Dude]

I have a fireplace at the end of a pretty new well insulated ranch home and have the same problem. I never run the gas furnace just the fireplace and now a small infrared box heater. The bedrooms are always colder than the main rooms even with the fan circulating and air returns and supplies to each room. My office is in the last room and is about 5-10 deg. cooler almost all the time, even though we have the furnace fan running, a ceiling fan on while the fireplace is running and also a 20' box fan pushing air down the hallway.

Menards, something like Home Depot, had infrared box type heaters for $60 or so for Christmas so I spring for one. It works great for my lone office at the end of the house. It is supposed to be good for 1000 sq. ft. and my office is only a few hundred, but I put the thing on low (750 watt) and it is a nice even quiet heat and raises the temp to a more comfortable heat in 30 min. I only run it when the temp in my office dips to 60 and until the fireplace starts pumping heat to the end of the house, but that would be an economical, easy fix. Then in the summer you can throw it in the closet. You only need it for a couple years anyway probably.

 

[clemsonfor]

Turn your fan control from auto to on. When you build your fire your temp is exciding your stat setting. I also place a fan in the hallway to move some air.

If your heat rarely kicks on this is really an ineffecient way to distribute the heat as you have to heat up your ducts before you will get the full benefit of the heat, also there is a good bit of loss because the ducts often run in unheated areas, ie the crawl or attic space. trust me i and many over at hearth.com have tried this as well as discussed it.

 

[flhpi]

What Clemsonfor said, push cold air to the stove. Cold air is dense and moves easier. Work with the natural flow of mother nature. Help the natural convection of hot and cold. Split a sliver of tissue paper and old it in doorways with the fan on and off and watch the flow. Good luck

 

[zzvyb6]

Buy some 1" foil lined foam board and line the walls and ceiling with it to cut heat loss. Then cut 1" off the bottom of the rood door to allow cold air to flow out. I've used a duct booster in my back room to held with air flow, but the insulation and the full time air circ. solved my problem.

Actually, babies sleep better in a cold room from my experience. But, summer temps will be better in their room if you have A/C.

 

[Mickey_Fx]

Looks like a couple have not read through all the posts by the OP. They have already said there is an inch air space at the bottom of the door. That's more than enough to permit air to move in and out of the room. At 1" height and door width of 28", the area is equal to an air supply of 6" dia which is fairly close to what one would expect in a smaller room.

Most likely reason for the lack of heat in this room is as stated my Clemsonfor, heat loss in the air ducts. Air return close to the bedroom in question and not so close to the wood stove. The circulating air can't be any higher than at the air return but then as it circulates through out the house heat is lost in the air ducts. How big a loss is all determined by how long the duct runs are, how well the ducts are insulated and amb temp the air ducts are running through. The returning air will be colder than it was at the air return.

I have a sim situation where my pellet stove is located is about 30' to nearest air return. Room the stove is in is typ 5-7 degrees warmer than any other room. All my ducts are insulated and amb air temp where the ducts run is in the 30-40 degree range. I do have the ability to control circulation fan speed when just on air circulation.

 

[Pilot]

Don't close the door. I'm not being facetious. When our boy was an infant, my wife made all the noise she could while he slept. Ran the vacuum, the dishwasher, had the radio on, etc. He soon slept thru all of it. He slept because he needed to; the noise wasn't an issue.

And when she thought he was ready (eating baby food? I don't remember) she decided it was time he slept thru the night. So on a Friday night, he woke up and cried and we gritted our teeth and let him cry. He cried for an hour or 2. Next night, half an hour. 3rd night, he woke up, made a little noise & went back to sleep. Problem solved, he slept thru the night after that, no more middle of the night feedings.