Wood heat and central heat?

[jeff43]

I have a wood stove in my basement with a hood over it and 2 vents that goes up to my kitchen and living room.The 2 vents are about 6 and 10 feet away from my central heat and air return.If I have a fire built in the stove, and turn on only the fan on the central unit , do you think it would circulate enough heat to heat the house?It's probably 30 feet to the other end of the house.

[runco]

Try it. 

 

My dad's wood heater was built with a two flues, one for the smoke to the chimney, and the other was made to pipe into the HVAC duct work.  It had its own blower for pushing the heated air into the ducts. 

[MudBugjr]

My grandfather used to push heat from his stove to other end of house. Worked pretty good was a little cooler bac there but made it to where his heat barely ran.

[peejman]

Yep, it'll work.  It may not keep the far end of the house toasty warm, but your central heat will run less often and you'll benefit from cleaner air and slightly higher humidity in the house.  Check your air filter at least monthly.... it'll clog up mush faster with the fan running all the time.  Depending on the layout of your house, running the fan 24/7 may help reduce your energy usage year round. 

Edited November 18, 2014 by peejman

[swim615]

When we had our HVAC installed we wanted to have a intake vent directly over the wood stove in the basement but they told us it was bad for the hvac system and would cause it to wear prematurely with the extra smoke and dust. We still build a fire in the winter and just leave the fan in the HVAC running with the nearest intake about 20ft away. It still moves the heat throughout the entire house and keeps most of evenly heated as well. During the colder months we save well over $100 on the electric bill.

[kckndrgn]

I grew up in MN and we heated a 2 story house only with wood heat while growing up.  No central heat/fan to circulate the air, just a register in the ceiling/floor above the stove to let heat to the upstairs.  The stove was on one side of the house and all the bedrooms were on the opposite side and upstairs from it.  Never had a problem with being cold that I can remember.

 

If you have a central AC/Furnace that you can use to move the air around you should be good to go.

[vontar]

when I had my central heat/ac installed the guy saw I used wood heat and he told me to turn the fan on and just circulate the air, filter it and balance the house out.  Said it would cause no harm.

I hadn't wanted to say but I had been doing that on the previous system.  It was replaced due to age and the AC had quite. 

 

My house is only 1,000 sq foot, I don't exactly feel heat coming though those vents from it, but it does filter the air and help keep hot and cold spots down.