Moving woodstove heat upstairs
Hello,
I am an amateur builder and built my own house from a First Day Cottage kit. It is a post and beam style 1400 sf cape, with an open floor plan on the first floor and 3 bedrooms and a bath on the second floor. I have a woodstove centrally located on the first floor, radiant heat in the basement slab and under the entire first floor, mostly as backup. I also ran radiant under the second floor bathroom, which I keep low so it doesn’t run all day (and because I am pretty cheap).
I am trying to get more heat to the upstairs bedrooms. Right now there is a 15-20 degree differential between first and second floor (downstairs was a cozy 72 degrees F last night while upstairs was a chilly 50). I have decided to place some registers and am wondering the best location for them and optimal size. There is an open central staircase located behind the stove. The easiest and out of the way place for me to put a register is in the small upstairs hallway, and this would be almost directly above the woodstove. But that would also basically put it near the top of the stairwell, and I picture the heat just sort of cycling back down the stairwell and not dispersing upstairs to the bedrooms. Is this accurate?
If I am home all day and feed the stove continually the upstairs will be warm by bedtime(60F on a 10F winter night), but most days the stove doesn’t get started until 4 or 5pm, and that just doesn’t seem to be enough time to get the job done. I have a baby on the way and am worried about keeping it warm, not to mention my long-suffering wife.
I have attached a layout of my second floor, which has changed a bit (for the better) but is essentially the same. The boxed-in woodstove pipe at the top of the stairs will give you an idea of where the stove is located below.
Thanks in advance. Sorry for the long email but after reading through the forum I recognize that more info is always better than less.
Rich
Replies
You need a way for the warm air to get up, and a way for the cold air to get down. The open stairwell lets warm air up, but cold air can't easily go down, at least not without dragging a lot of warm air with it. You need an opening or two or three in the floor near the outside walls to let cold air descend and to draw warm air across the width of the upper floor.
Someone here posted some pictures of a hanging cloth tube with a fan at the top, running down a stairwell between floors. Can be done such that the tube looks like an art piece.
Hi Sean,
I've heard people have had success using ultra-quiet ventilation fans to move heat within a house. Panasonic WhisperSense is one brand to look into. They're bath fans, but use so little power and run so quietly that they aren't even noticeable. Maybe locate them in the ceiling of the first floor and exhaust them into the second floor near the bottom of the wall, or out from the floor.
Something to consider,
Justin
FHB Editorial
Moving woodstove heat upstairs
Friends who live in an old house in Maine have a small opening in the ceiling above the woodstove which catches enough heat to keep the upstairs toasty warm. I think it was part of the original design. An ecofan, check on google, can also move heat around with no effort.
A big temperature difference
.. between up and down levels means the house is losing heat big time. A tight and well-insulated house, with a point heat source on the lower level and with a stairwell left open, will be a lot more isothermal than the 15-20 degrees mentioned by the OP. Last year, I heated our new superinsulated house with a very small woodstove in the lower level while interior construction was being completed. The stairwell was not closed off. The upper and lower level temperatures were only about a degree apart the whole time.
As has been noted, the OP needs a means for cold air to return to a point at or below the woodstove. If A/C were to be added to the house, the installer would be looking for closets and other places for hiding the ductwork between levels. That's what has to happen here, I think. I do wonder, though, why stratification of warm and cold air layers wouldn't the warm and cold air masses pass each other in an open stairwell. I wouldn't want to spend much time sitting on the stairs in this case.
This is the post important bit of info
I am an amateur builder and built my own house from a First Day Cottage kit.
So, since you built it from a kit, can you tell us FIRST about the air sealing yo did? Did you use caulk or foam or tape on the seams?
What about insulation - is your insulation in the wall and attic at least what is recomended for your zone (http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=home_sealing.hm_improvement_insulation_table)
How about a blower door test - how much air is your home leaking in the first place?
I'm being hard on you, but I'm also a DIYer who's in the midst of a big project of my own. I suspect the answer to your problem lies in fixing the things that need to be fixed FIRST, rather than changing the interior design. Having lived in 2 story colonials, I can attest that my normal winter problem is that the upstairs is always too hot, and I need to keep all the upstairs vents closed so that the first floor gets at least SOME heat before it all flows upstairs. My problem was always trying to suck hot air back down to the first floor.