Heat loss in room with high ceiling

The main room in our house has a high ceiling (approx 20ft), we use a woodburning stove for heating in the winter, but as expected all the heat rises and fills the roof space. There is a galleried landing and it is noticeably hotter upstairs.
What is the best method of getting the heat back down to floor level e.g. Ceiling fan? or will this cause a draft.

Ceiling sweep fan.
(Destratification Fan)

Ceiling fan, running on slow speed.

or a length of soil pipe or vent hose, connected to a small extractor fan at floor level, possibly built in to a cupboard, to suck the heat back down.

No idea if this would work for your installation or not, but it runs on the heat generated by the stove…
http://www.fluesystems.com/sundries/info/ecofan.htm

The Ecofan wouldn’t work as its designed to sit on top of the stove and that is where the flue exits.
Also think a roof fan is a bit tacky? (not sticky but cheesy)
I like the idea of gathering the heat in the roof and then sucking it back down to floor level, unfortuneately there are no cupboards to hide any ducting in, so it would have to be a feature, although could make it using shiny stainless steel tube like the Flue.

You could fit an inline fan running at slow spoeed in a stainless steel flu, each side of the stove.

Does the flue take up all the space atop the stove? Is there no room to the front of it? If you have a room of that CC I am thinking you need a pretty big stove, therefore have a bit of space?????

My parents flat has high celings (its in a NT house, 25ft wouldn’t be an optomistic estimate!).

They get arround it by closing the door tot he living room (theres only realy that, the kitchen/brekfast room and bedrooms and hall anyway) in the evening and turn on a couple of oil/electric heaters by the sofas to get the whole room warm.

Doing jobs like putting curtains up, dusting for cobwebs etc are horendous though as even in the spring when the fire/heaters haven’t been used and its not the heat of the summer yet the top of the room is really hot and gets uncomfortable after just a couple of minutes!

Get a proper industrial ceiling fan with speed controller, balanced properly and it’ll look pretty good I reckon. Don’t get one of the bizarre raffia and timber with brass fittings style you see in coffee shops.

Guaranteed fix 🙂

Surely though waiting for the hot air to rise (and cool) then blowing it back down is a waste of energy? Isn’t it better to get the hot air from the stove directly into the room in the first place? (Ie, blow it out).

MF + 1

Wasn’t stoner going to knock up a home made one of them?

LOL at sharkbait – I was thinking along the same silly lines but couldn’t muster the creative idea to communicate it.

😆

yep – just waiting on the bits to do some testing. Someone on eBay seems to be selling a homemade one as well. Im planning a very similar construction.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130457326083&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_500wt_1156

In cold weather, operate the fan in the slow speed, REVERSE direction. This creates a gentle updraft, which recirculates the hot air trapped at the ceiling to provide even, comfortable heat throughout your room. The recirculation of warm air allows you to lower the room’s thermostat setting, resulting in energy savings of 24% or more.

http://www.aircon247.com/g/34471/guide-to-ceiling-fans.html

I think these guys have the right idea though:
http://www.bigassfans.co.uk/page/industrial

The main room in our house has a high ceiling (approx 20ft), we use a woodburning stove for heating in the winter, but as expected all the heat rises and fills the roof space. There is a galleried landing and it is noticeably hotter upstairs.

I’m not sure there really is a satisfactory solution for this sort of problem. Mum and dad used to have a house with a room like that – we only used it in the summer and at Xmas. I never really thought much about heating but I remember it was quite a bit warmer on the galleried landing.
If it was a long term house and the room was big enough I might conside a mezzanine floor (accessed via the galleried landing) to use in the cold weather….. sounds like the roof is high enough.
I do tink about this heating problem sometimes when watching Grand Designs and their lovely looking but rather impractical designs.

I do tink about this heating problem sometimes when watching Grand Designs and their lovely looking but rather impractical designs.

I guess many of the Grand Designs are super-insulated though so they don’t take a great deal of heating, even in very cold weather.

I guess many of the Grand Designs are super-insulated though so they don’t take a great deal of heating, even in very cold weather.

heat still rises though doesn’t it!

your not waiting for the air to cool but moving it around and back down to the floor area. Standard practice in warehouse’s etc with warm air heating as it saves an awful lot of heat and therefore money.
http://www.ambirad.co.uk/htm/ambirad/php/pdfs/Destratification_Fans.pdf
is the sort of thing but that would be far too powerful for a domestic house. Other people make them but realistically a sweep fan is the thing you need. They also spread the heat around more evenly than without.
Attach a thermostat and adjust to taste.

As for Grand Designs I doubt half the “unheated” houses actually work and they have electric heaters stashed everywhere.

Underfloor heating…

Ceiling fan – I had similar problem and fitted a ceiling fan, a good ‘un with summer and winter settings. ie in summer it blows down to create a nice cooling breeze and in winter it can be reversed which has the effect of lifting warm air quickly up to the ceiling which as it hits the ceiling then gets pressed out towards the walls and is forced back down those walls. It works a treat, really.

It looks like a ceiling fan will be the cheapest and easiest option.
The house is in the North of scotland (very cold in winter) and this is the main room which includes the Lounge, Dining Room and Kitchen. The house is well insulated, and it is warm, it could just be warmer/use less fuel.
sharkbait – A Mezzanine floor would work, but I can’t afford it and we don’t need the extra space, the high ceilings are also a nice feature.
Smarty – So a celing fan sucks the warm air up, rather than blowing it down, makes sense.

Just been looking in the Clearview stoves brochure and they’re using a 14kw stove [their biggest one] to heat a room with 18′ high ceiling. You’ve got a large volume to heat….. is the stove big enough?

A Mezzanine floor would work, but I can’t afford it and we don’t need the extra space, the high ceilings are also a nice feature.

Wasn’t ‘that’ serious an idea 😉

A nice suspended ceiling would sort you out…..

aP – Nice!

sharkbait – Its a Tiger Classic 5.9kW output, so yes its not powerful enough, but it was installed when we bought the place. There are electric panel heaters as well, so the room is never cold, would be nice to reduce the heating bill a bit.

Tiger Classic 5.9kW output, so yes its not powerful enough

Ewwwww……. sounds like it’s a lot too small. Long-term I think you’d be better off putting a big stove in there – you will use more wood but it would probably be cheaper than buying/installing/running a fan + panel heaters.

6kw is quite a lot even for a large room.
Especially as you say it’s well insulated.

Obviously you have to be getting every bit of heat out of it to achieve 6kw.

I heat my entire house off a 14kw stove (inc rads and hot water) and it’s mostly just tickling along after the first few hours of use.

Give me some dimensions inc windows and outside walls and an idea of how old and how well insulated and I’ll tell you what size you need. remember a bigger stove just eats more and more fuel. Your better off running the one you’ve got full rather than half using a massive one.

20 foot ceilings though are going to kill you as noted above as you’ll struggle to heat the top half let alone the bottom in a sensible timescale.

A small stove running at optimum temperature is much more efficient than a large one being starved.

But there obviously is a happy middle-ground somewhere.

tomlevell – Thanks for the offer, its our holiday house and I won’t be going up again until Christmas, but I think I have approx dimensions around somewhere.

Why not make all the legs on your furniture really long so you sit in the warm bit?

Might need a ladder to get on the sofa mind..

A small stove running at optimum temperature is much more efficient than a large one being starved

also a large stove with a back boiler not running at full tilt can lead to terrible tarring problems in the flue and box.

Why not make all the legs on your furniture really long so you sit in the warm bit?

We’re running an 8Kw stove in a room measuring 6.1m x 3.7m x 2.3m high – it has two doorways; one going upstairs and the other into a big kitchen. Windows are Dg and cavity is filled ( 😯 )
Although a 5kw stove would have done the job we were advised by Clearview to go for a bigger stove and make more use of the heat (i.e. allowing the heat to go upstairs and into the kitchen, etc.) so we did.
Once we’ve got it up to temperature (casing temp of 400-500F) we close the vents to slow it down and use less fuel – if the temp starts to drop much below 400f we open it up again.
The doors into the room can be opened/closed as required allowing us to decide where the heat goes – both doors cannot be closed at the same time as it gets too hot!
I would rather have this control over the heat produced (and be able to really crank out the heat if required) rather than having a stove that’s got to be run flat out to generate enough heat.