Room to room heat shifting

Dardania

Hi all,

Has anyone experience with heat shifting from a room with a stove to another room? Problem in a family members house that the stove overheats the kitchen/dining room, and they want to vent the heat up the house at a certain point.
To immediately alleviate the problem, I've fitted TRVs to the rads to stop doubling up of heat, but now the focus has turned to ducting the excess heat to the bedroom above, and from there to the landing and out.
There are Aussie / New Zealand kits like this: http://www.radiolive.co.nz/Heat-Transfer-Kit-facts-and-advice-from-Jim-at-Bunnings-Warehouse/tabid/488/articleID/14641/Default.aspx which all feature fans ( which I wasn't expecting, I was more expecting the hot air to be buoyant enough to rise...) but what they don't mention is fire dampers ( I have in mind one of these: http://www.flaktwoods.ie/a0bbc571-811f-44a7-b67d-2bc13b385c24 )

Anyone seen anything like this before, or have experience with installing it?

antoinolachtnai

I have seen similar in commercial for sure.

The conventional way to take heat off a stove and distributing it around a home is by linking it to the central heating piping.

Is there a neighbouring room, or better still, corridor that you could blow air out to? This would be a much better solution. A regular extractor fan installed between the room and the corridor would do the job. You could switch it manually, or you could couple it to a pretty standard thermostat that you can get from any electrical supplier.

The damper you are pointing at just doesn't seem like a good solution to me. It isn't designed for what you have in mind. It is designed for a very specific job.

Breaking any sort of an opening into a bedroom above seems like it would be very likely to create a fire hazard. It s very important that a ceiling provides a barrier against fire in a downstairs room. This is what will give you time to escape from the house in an emergency and will stop the rafters from collapsing if the firemen have to enter the burning building to fight the fire or conduct a search. Putting in a vent would be much less of a barrier between the kitchen (which obviously contains a stove) and the room where people sleep, and this could be a big problem if there were fire, fumes, or worst of all, carbon monoxide.

It could certainly result in a noise nuisance. (if someone is trying to sleep in the bedroom and people are talking in the bedroom below the sound will carry to a much greater extent.) The fire issues are very serious, but even if they can be overcome, this would be a very significant practical problem.

You need to take extra precautions in any case to make sure there is adequate airflow from outside to supply the stove with fresh air.

Some of the above (plumbing a stove to central heating, breaking the fire ceiling above a kitchen) are things that require fairly specialised expertise to do safely. Putting a fan on the wall leading out to the corridor seems like a safe enough and cheap enough option, providing you have adequate ventilation.

Dardania

The fire risk idea is why I had in mind the need for a fire damper, with fusible link etc. to close in the event of a fire.

I agree with you on the noise nuisance - the occupant of the room above is generally living away from home during the week, and we had in mind an override switch mounted in the room to close for the times when they are there, and want silence.

Its unfortunate with the room that the stove is in - it has a higher ceiling in the section where the stove is than the rest of the house, thereby causing pooling of heat. It's on the edge of the house also, so no practical routes to duct to other spaces...

Idea certainly needs refinement. The stove in question doesn't have a heat exchanger for LPHW - can these be retrofitted?

antoinolachtnai

Don't know about fitting the heat exchanger. It is a really specialised area. I am sure it depends on the type of stove.

Is there any way to reduce the output of the stove? It's probably using a lot of fuel needlessly.

I'd say that damper is pretty pricey, by the time you put the whole thing together with switches, power supplies, etc.

It would look pretty weird if you ever went to sell the house.

There must be a door from the kitchen to the rest of the house. Could the fan go above the door? What about in the wall between the higher and lower level of the ceiling? A ceiling fan (like this http://www.hosowo.com/how-to-improve-house-appearance-with-ceiling-fan/) in the area with the high ceiling might help, though it might actually make the kitchen hotter.

nmblinkers

I am looking for a similar solution except my living room ( 13 ft vaulted ceiling) has a 12 kw stove.... I want to transfer heat from the top of the apex of the ceiling into the kitchen which is beside the living room.. I'm thinking of putting a duct with an in line fan controlled by a simple thermostat which will take warm air from the ceiling and transfer it to skirting height in the kitchen... Does anyone think this will be effective or just a waste of time....????.... I had considered a ceiling fan in the living room but if I could transfer heat from the ceiling which is bound to be quite warm due to the apex nature of it hence collecting warm air at the very top and sending it to floor level of the kitchen...... Any thoughts?

Nicky...

antoinolachtnai

First thing is that ducts and fans and stuff are not cheap to buy and install.

They also take up space.

They are also a pain to maintain. An internal duct which I suppose would be 10 foot long and have two or three bends would not be easy to keep clean. I mean the insides of the duct. If the duct were blowing outwards this would not be as big an issue but the air from it is going to be exhausted into the house so you would need to keep it fairly spick and span.

I would try the ceiling fan solution before getting into anything as elaborate as this. You could actuate the fan with a thermostat.

Now I could be wrong and a guy who does this for a living could say this is worthwhile to do. But I would be very careful to make sure it is not just a big hassle.

2 stroke

I've done some experiments using computer fans, operating at 6 volts to reduce noise, and found them very effective drawing the warm air from ceiling level, but I've been reluctant to duct heat to the bedrooms for fear of fire risk. I like the idea of the electrical fire damper, could be wired via smoke detector and thermostats.

Dardania

2 stroke wrote: »

I've done some experiments using computer fans, operating at 6 volts to reduce noise, and found them very effective drawing the warm air from ceiling level, but I've been reluctant to duct heat to the bedrooms for fear of fire risk. I like the idea of the electrical fire damper, could be wired via smoke detector and thermostats.

The electrical fire damper I have in mind has a fusible link which will spring shut in a fire: http://www.flaktwoods.ie/a0bbc571-811f-44a7-b67d-2bc13b385c24
The backup with smoke detectors is good idea

auzworld

I got the www.turboflame.ie system installed in my home ... it feeds 4 bedrooms.... and as I have theirr fireplace exchanger in aswell i got loads of heat to push about .... I rent my rooms so got to keep the renters warm... which it does... no need to turn on my heating in the evenings now when my fire is on ... Sometimes I gotta get up to see if the system is actually on ... so no noise issues with mine